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Space News, Astronomy News, Outer Space News |
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 Space
Shuttle Columbia Disaster
Mars 
Mars Planet  Planet
Mars
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SPACE News:
 Earth
-  Science
"Galaxy has 'billions of Earths': There could be one hundred billion Earth-like planets in our galaxy, a US conference has heard." ... "So far, telescopes have been able to detect just over 300 planets outside our Solar System." -BBC/News 
 Dick
Cheney - Secret
- Satellite
-  Map
- Image
-  Government
-  Home
-  Political
-  History
"Cheney's Veil Lifted on Vice President's Residence." ... "Hope and change has come to Google Maps. The official residence of the vice president, obscured until [Republican President] Dick Cheney's last days in office and residence, now shines in satellite sunlight." ... "A reader tipped us off that Google Maps now showed a clear overhead image of One Observatory Circle ... , the address which has served as the home of the vice president since 1974. It's the first glimpse Google users have gotten of the place." ... "Could there be a better visual metaphor for the change of administration? The old one hid behind blurry pixels. The new one welcomes a close look." -By Owen Thomas -Gawker.com 
 Corporate
- Government
-  Christmas
- Debt
- History
-  Accounting
- Politics
- Homeowners
-  Auto
-  Military
- Space
"Bailout payout tops $8 trillion." ... "As the holiday season commences, it’s worth taking stock of the last gift that [Republican] President George W. Bush and the 110th Congress have left for U.S. [United States] taxpayers." ... "It’s a package of about $8.7 trillion dollars’ worth of potential taxpayer commitments for loans, guarantees and other bailout goodies for businesses and distressed homeowners." ... "Amid the tissue paper:" ... "• More than $1.5 trillion in Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. [Corporation] loan guarantees, including a $139 billion assist to the lending arm of General Electric Corp." ... "• $1.8 trillion in cash, tax breaks and loan guarantees doled out from the Treasury Department to taxpayers, financial institutions and credit companies." ... "• $300 billion for homeowners from the Federal Housing Authority." ... "• $25 billion in assistance for auto companies from a program overseen by the Energy Department, which is separate from the bailout proposal that tanked last week in the Senate." ... "• And $5 trillion worth of new money, loan guarantees and loosened lending requirements from the Federal Reserve Bank." ... "According to Bianco Research President James Bianco, who crunched these numbers, that amounts to more government aid and assistance than nine other historic bailouts and big government outlays combined." ... "The New Deal, for instance, cost an estimated $32 billion in its day, which would be about $500 billion in today’s dollars. The Marshall Plan cost about $12.7 billion, which is the equivalent of a paltry $115.3 billion. The Louisiana Purchase? The French got $15 million, which would be worth about $217 billion today." ... "If you take those three items, add in the adjusted costs of the Race to the Moon, the savings and loan crisis, the Korean War, the Iraq war, the Vietnam War and assistance for NASA [National Aeronautics and Space Administration ], you still get to just $3.92 trillion — not even half of the taxpayers’ exposure today, according to Bianco." -By Jeanne Cummings -Politico.com via -AP 
 Kevin
Jeffrey Martin - Corporate
- Government
- Politics
- Satellite
- Spectrum
- History
-  Communications
-  Media
- Minorities
-  Women
-  Lawmakers
-  Md
"Radio Merger Under Fire From Black Lawmakers: Caucus, FCC [Federal Communications Commission] Chair Differ On Setting Aside XM, Sirius Channels for Minorities." ... "Senior members of the Congressional Black Caucus yesterday criticized a compromise plan for the proposed merger of the XM and Sirius satellite radio companies, saying the deal does not provide enough opportunities for minority-owned programming." ... "[Republican President Bush's] Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin J. Martin said over the weekend that he would support the merger after XM Satellite Radio Holdings and Sirius Satellite Radio voluntarily agreed, among a series of other concessions, to lease 4 percent of their radio spectrums, or 12 channels, for programming run by minorities and women." ... "Members of the black caucus on Capitol Hill have been arguing for the merged company to lease five times that amount of spectrum to companies owned by racial minorities." ... "[Maryland Democratic Representative Elijah E. Cummings:] "It's shocking to the conscience in this day and age, where the minority populations comprise a significant part of the satellite radio audience, that Mr. Martin would settle for what I deem to be crumbs that have fallen off the table," Cummings said." ... "If the merger is approved, it would be a major reversal of FCC rules. The agency distributed licenses to XM and Sirius in 1997 on the condition the two companies never combine." -By Jeffrey H. Birnbaum -WashingtonPost 
 Brazil
- Satellite
- Photographs
-  Global
- Climate
-  Gases
-  Food
-  Animals
-  Farming
- Illegal
- Business
"New satellite photos show Amazon deforestation exploding." ... "New satellite photographs show that the destruction of Brazil's fragile Amazon rainforest has exploded this year, fueling fears that the government's efforts to stop deforestation have been fruitless." ... "Brazil's DETER real-time monitoring system found that more than 430 square miles of forest, an area a bit smaller than the city of Los Angeles, vanished in the month of April, while about 2,300 square miles, larger than the state of Delaware, were destroyed between last August and April." ... "That nine-month total surpassed the entire acreage in the Amazon that was destroyed over the previous 12 months, according to DETER data. What's worse, the satellites couldn't see about half of the forest in April due to cloud cover, suggesting that actual deforestation likely was much greater." ... "That's raised red flags among environmentalists, who say that soybean farming, cattle production and illegal logging are destroying the world's largest rainforest despite the government's attempts to halt the deforestation." ... "Chopping down and burning the rainforest releases tons of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, contributing to global climate change. Brazil is the world's fourth-largest emitter of greenhouse gases, largely because of deforestation, according to the U.S.-based World Resources Institute." ... "Worse is yet to come, environmentalists said." ... "The Amazon's dry season, when farmers do most of their burning and clearing, starts this month." -By Jack Chang -McClatchyDC.com
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Richard
Shelby - Corporate
- Politics
- Government
- Military
- Legislation
- Space
- 
Computer
- Technology
- 
Alabama
EU
- Global
- 
Russia
- 
US
- Military
- Politics
- "EU
sends up 1st of 30 satellites in GPS network." ...
"The European Union on Wednesday launched the first satellite in its $4.5
billion Galileo global positioning system, a bid to enhance the world's
growing reliance on satellite navigation and to break the U.S. monopoly
on networks in space." ... "Many Europeans see political significance in
the project too: The world's only civilian-controlled system will give
Europe and its partner nations self-sufficiency from the United States,
which has warned it could diminish or cut off GPS satellite coverage to
countries considered enemies in times of national emergency." ... "The
launch comes at a time when Russia is moving forward with a positioning
system known as GLONASS. On Sunday it put into orbit three new satellites
for the network, which is scheduled to be operational in 2010." -By
Molly Moore-WashingtonPost
via -ChicagoTribune
EU
- Global
- Russia
- US
- Military
- Technology
- "Sky-High
Ambitions: Europe attempts to find its own place
in the world of satellite navigation with the launch of GIOVE-A." ... "Europe
has moved one giant step closer to operating its own long-awaited global
navigation satellite system, Galileo, designed to challenge the domination
of the U.S. military's GPS, or Global Positioning System." ... "GIOVE-A
(or Galileo In-Orbit Validation Element) will be testing new technologies
— including atomic clocks, signal generators and user receivers — for what
has been a dream of the European Union since the early 1990s: a wide-ranging
navigation system that is faster and more precise than GPS, provides an
uninterrupted service under civilian control, and offers a commercial alternative
to the U.S. system and its Russian counterpart, GLONASS (Global Navigation
Satellite System)." -By Maryann Bird
-TIME.com
Science
- 
California
- 
Los
Angeles - 
Hawaii
- "Man-Made
"Star" Illuminates Milky Way's Mysterious Center."
... "[...] even on the clearest night, the earth's atmosphere obscures
the true brilliance of our galaxy and astronomers have long struggled with
images blurred by its mix of gases and turbulence. Now researchers have
used a new laser-generated star to obtain the clearest pictures yet of
the Milky Way's center. " ... "Astronomer Andrea Ghez of the University
of California, Los Angeles, and her colleagues used the 10-meter Keck 2
telescope in Hawaii, which has a laser attached to it, to observe our galaxy.
The skywatchers employed the 14-watt laser to generate a fake star. By
continuously imaging this false star along with the real ones, they could
correct any fuzziness or other distortions introduced by the earth's atmosphere."
-By David Biello -ScientificAmerican
GOV
- Business
- Space
- 
Privacy
- "Review
Leads to Upheaval in Spy Satellite Programs." ...
"A high-level review led by John D. Negroponte, the new intelligence director,
is stirring a major upheaval within the country's spy satellite programs,
beginning with an overhaul of a $15 billion program plagued by delays and
cost overruns." ... "In a terse announcement last week, the National Reconnaissance
Office, responsible for developing and launching the devices, said only
that a Boeing Company contract to provide the next generation of reconnaissance
satellites, known as the Future Imagery Architecture, was being "restructured.""
... "But government officials and outside experts said Mr. Negroponte had
ordered that Boeing stop work on a significant part of the project, involving
satellites with powerful cameras, under a plan to shift the mission to
Lockheed Martin, Boeing's chief competitor." -By Douglas
Jehl -NYTimes
-
-
- CA
- "Scientists
find errors in global warming data." ... "After examining
the satellite data, collected since 1979 by National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration weather satellites, Carl Mears and Frank Wentz of Remote
Sensing Systems in Santa Rosa, Calif. [California], found that the satellites
had drifted in orbit, throwing off the timing of temperature measures.
Essentially, the satellites were increasingly reporting nighttime temperatures
as daytime ones, leading to a false cooling trend. The team also found
a math error in the calculations." -By Dan Vergano
-USATODAY
Travel
-
- "Trips
around the moon for sale - for $100 million." ...
"The company that pioneered commercial space travel by sending "tourists"
up to the International Space Station is planning a new mission: rocketing
people around the far side of the moon." ... "The price of a round-trip
ticket: $100 million." ... "The first mission by Space Adventures could
happen in 2008 or 2009 and is planned as a stepping stone to an eventual
lunar landing by private citizens." -AP
via -azcentral.com
CA
- Space
Shuttle Columbia Disaster
-
- "U.S.
space shuttle Discovery lands safely." ... "The space
shuttle Discovery and its seven astronauts returned to Earth safely on
Tuesday, bringing a successful end to NASA's troubled return to human space
flight 2 1/2 years after the Columbia disaster." ... "NASA accomplished
its main goal for the mission -- safely launching and landing the aging
shuttle. But when chunks of insulation flew off Discovery's fuel tank during
launch, the U.S. space agency learned it had failed to fix the problem
that doomed Columbia on Feb. 1, 2003." -By Nichola
Groom -Reuters
- "New
Planet Discovered in the Solar System?" ... "A chunk
of rock and ice that may be a planet has been discovered in the farthest
reaches of the solar system, astronomers announced Friday. The object,
currently called 2003 UB313, orbits the sun and is larger than Pluto, traditionally
considered the ninth planet in the solar system." ... "The discovery of
UB313 is likely to reignite the debate over the definition of "planet"—and
over how many objects in the solar system are deserving of the name." (1,
2)
-By John Roach -NationalGeographic>News
- "Voyager
Spacecraft Sails Into New Frontier." ... "Voyager
1, a spacecraft launched 28 years ago to study Jupiter and Saturn, is well
on its way into a new frontier: interstellar space, scientists said Tuesday."
... "Now moving at nearly one million miles a day, a speed equivalent to
flying from New York to Los Angeles in four minutes, Voyager 1 has reached
the edge of the solar system and begun crossing into the vastness of interstellar
space — the first human-made object to do so." ... "Now, the scientific
community is in agreement that Voyager is beyond a point known as the termination
shock region, where the sun's influence ends and the solar winds crash
into the thin gas between the stars." (1, 2,
image)
-By Irene Mona Klotz -Discovery.com
- 
-
- 
-
- "Laser
Could Rival Energy From Sun's Center." ... "In a
building the size of a football stadium, engineers have assembled the framework
for a network of 192 laser beams, each traveling 1,000 feet to converge
simultaneously on a target the size of a pencil eraser." ... "The goal
is to create unimaginable heat 180 million degrees Farenheit and intense
pressure from all directions on a BB-size hydrogen fuel pellet, compressing
it to one-thirtieth of its size." ... "The result, the scientists hope,
will be a fusing of atoms so that more energy is released than is generated
by the laser beams, something scientists call fusion ignition. It is what
happens when a hydrogen bomb explodes." (1, 2,
3,
4)
-By H. Josef Hebert -AP
via -ABCNEWS.com
- "NASA
Chief Speeds Plan For Spacecraft: Griffin Wants to
Launch Shuttle Replacement by 2010." ... "Less than a month after taking
the job, NASA Administrator Michael D. Griffin is pushing an ambitious
but risky plan to shave four years off the timetable for building a next-generation
spaceship to replace the space shuttle, and wants to launch it with a crew
by the end of 2010." ... "The shuttle has not flown since the Columbia
tragedy in February 2003, and even after safety modifications are completed
and flights resume, the orbiter will not be able to get beyond "low Earth
orbit" and will become obsolete as soon as construction of the international
space station is completed in 2010." ... "NASA has planned for more than
a year to build a new workhorse spacecraft to carry out President Bush's
long-term vision for space exploration, aimed at returning humans to the
moon by 2020 and eventually sending them to Mars, but the initial strategy
called for completion of the new spaceship by 2014. That would leave the
United States without its own access to space for four years." (1, 2)
-By Guy Gugliotta-WashingtonPost
- "Twelve
new moons for Saturn." ... "Astronomers have discovered
12 new moons orbiting Saturn, bringing its number of natural satellites
to 46." ... "The moons are small, irregular bodies - probably only about
3-7km in size - that are far from Saturn and take about two years to complete
one orbit." ... "All but one circles Saturn in the opposite direction to
its larger moons - a characteristic of captured bodies." -By
Dr David Whitehouse-BBC
/News
- Animals
- "Scientists:
Life on Mars Likely." ... "Not so long ago it was
unthinkable for respectable scientists to talk about life on Mars. Such
talk was best left to X-Files fans. But no longer." ... "Evidence is building
to suggest biological processes might be operating on the red planet, and
life on Mars, many scientists believe, is now more a likelihood than merely
a possibility." -By Rowan Hooper
-Wired
-
- 
- -
- "Experts:
New Data Show Global Warming." ... "Climate scientists
armed with new data from deep in the ocean and far into space have found
that Earth is absorbing much more heat than it is giving off, a conclusion
they say validates projections of global warming." ... "Lead scientist
James Hansen, a prominent NASA climatologist, described the findings on
the planet's out-of-balance energy exchange as a "smoking gun" that should
dispel doubts about forecasts of climate change. A European climate expert
called it a valuable contribution to climate research." ... "Hansen's team,
reporting Thursday in the journal Science, said they also determined that
global temperatures will rise 1 degree Fahrenheit this century even if
greenhouse gases are capped tomorrow." -By Charles
J. Hanley -WashingtonPost
-
- 
- Robots
- "Robot
Space Mission Fails In Orbit." ... "A mishap ended
the mission of a computer-controlled NASA robotic spacecraft prematurely
after it came within 300 feet of a Pentagon satellite, officials said Saturday."
... "The DART spacecraft — short for Demonstration of Autonomous Rendezvous
Technology — was mounted and launched from an aircraft Friday morning."
-AP
via -CBSNews
-
-
- 
- "US
moves to create a beachhead in space: Satellite weapons
systems would give the US an edge but are costly and controversial." ...
"Since Sputnik arced across the sky in 1957, space has essentially been
a weapons-free zone - exempted from war at times by international treaties
and at others by the prohibitive expense and impracticality of arming the
heavens." ... "Today, however, as more nations gain access to space - and
as success in war becomes far more dependent on satellite surveillance
and communication - the United States is reassessing its space policy."
... "The new position, emerging in documents and congressional testimony,
in many respects mirrors President Bush's military policy on the ground
- expanding preemption and prevention into the ether, both to strike enemy
lands and satellites during times of conflict and to keep America's satellites
safe." -By Mark Sappenfield
-CSMonitor
-
- "Lab
fireball 'may be black hole': A fireball created
in a US particle accelerator has the characteristics of a black hole, a
physicist has said." ... "It was generated at the Relativistic Heavy Ion
Collider (RHIC) in New York, US, which smashes beams of gold nuclei together
at near light speeds." ... "Horatiu Nastase says his calculations show
that the core of the fireball has a striking similarity to a black hole."-BBC
/News
-
-
- "Bush
Names Missile Defense Veteran to Head NASA." ...
"Michael Griffin, a former chief engineer at NASA who has also worked on
missile defense systems, was named on Friday as President Bush's choice
to head the U.S. space agency." ... "Griffin is head of the space department
at the Applied Physics Laboratory of Johns Hopkins University, which works
on civilian and military space programs, including missile and air defense
and national security analysis." ... "Previously, he was president of In-Q-Tel,
the CIA's private venture capital arm, and worked at Orbital Sciences Corp.
, which develops rockets and missiles." -By Deborah
Zabarenko with contributions by Tabassum Zakaria -Reuters
via -WashingtonPost
- "Japanese
Rocket Places Satellite in Orbit: Japanese Rocket
Roars Off Launchpad, Places Satellite in Orbit 15 Months After Aborted
Liftoff." ... "Japan was the fourth country to launch a satellite, in 1972,
and along with a major lunar exploration mission in the works now has a
probe on its way to collect and retrieve samples from an asteroid a mission
that, if successful, would be a first." (1, 2)
-AP via -ABCNEWS
- Water
- "Sea
of Ice Found on Mars, Scientists Say." ... "Images
relayed by a European space probe reveal the existence of a sea of ice
close to the equator of Mars, scientists said Tuesday at a conference in
the Netherlands." ... "The scientists said the existence of water or ice
would significantly increase the chance that microscopic life may also
be found on Mars." -By Toby Sterling
-AP via -SFGate.com
- "NASA
Spacecraft Ascends to Test Einstein's Theory." ...
"Twenty-four hours after a previous launch attempt was stopped with just
three minutes to go, NASA successfully sent its Gravity Probe B mission
into space." ... "The $700 million spacecraft is designed to test two predictions
of Einstein’s general theory of relativity, which he proposed in 1916."
-By Sarah Graham -ScientificAmerican.com
-
- "Year-long
space station trips rejected." ... "NASA has rebuffed
a Russian proposal to extend the next mission aboard the International
Space Station from six months to a year. Lengthening the mission would
have allowed Russia's cash-strapped agency to sell two extra Soyuz spacecraft
seats to space tourists, at about $20 million each." -By
Will Knight -NewScientist.com
Water
-
- "Scientists
Report Evidence of Saltwater Pools on Mars." ...
"Mars was once a much warmer, wetter place, with pools of saltwater that
sometimes flowed across the surface, scientists reported Tuesday." ...
"Analyzing findings from sedimentary rocks explored by the rover Opportunity,
the scientists said the rocks now appeared to have formed under a shallow
bed of softly flowing water near a shoreline — not, as formerly seemed
possible, through seepage from underground." -By Warren
E. Leary -NYTimes
via -Google-News
- "'Small
asteroid' bypasses Earth by just 26,500 miles." ...
"A 100-foot-wide space rock yesterday missed Earth by only 26,500 miles,
the closest asteroid ever detected by astronomers before it actually made
its approach. The harmless flyby occurred at 2:08 p.m. Pacific time." ...
""We figure that on average something this size hits the Earth every two
to three years," said astronomer Paul Chodas, of NASA's Near-Earth Object
Program. "We've never detected them out in space, either approaching or
receding. This is the closest."" -By Guy Gugliotta
-WashingtonPost
with the -AP via -SeattleTimes.NWsource
- "Scientists:
Most distant object in solar system found: Scientists
may have discovered the solar system's most distant object, more than three
times farther away from the sun than Pluto." ... "The object -- about 8
billion miles (12.8 billion kilometers) from Earth -- has been given the
provisional name of Sedna, after the Inuit goddess who created sea creatures
of the Arctic." ... "The finding has sparked debate over what constitutes
a planet." -CNN
- Water
- "Life
was viable on Mars: Rover digs up history of abundant
briny water on Red Planet." ... "The Mars rover Opportunity has discovered
powerful evidence that water once drenched the surface of Mars and made
the planet habitable for life during some unknown epoch in the distant
past, NASA scientists announced Tuesday." ... "For the first time since
astronomers and planetary visionaries began speculating about water and
life on the Red Planet centuries ago, the historic new findings from the
Mars rover mission appear to have pinned down the long-cherished idea that
Mars in fact once held a warm, wet environment where life could well have
flourished." -By David Perlman
-SFGate.com
- "Mars
Rover Resumes Sending Data Back to Earth." ... "The
Mars rover Spirit resumed sending [limited] data to Earth on Friday after
the robot suffered from garbled communications and periods of intermittent
silence, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory said on Friday."
-Reuters via -Reuters.co.uk
- "NASA
Engineers Hope to Resume Communication With Rover After Two Days Without
Receiving Any Data." ... "Anxious NASA engineers
were trying to diagnose and possibly patch up their ailing robotic patient
after the Spirit rover stopped transmitting data from Mars." ... "NASA
hoped communication with the six-wheeled rover would resume Friday morning
after two days without receiving any significant data a potentially calamitous
turn that project manager Pete Theisinger called "a very serious anomaly.""
-AP via -ABCNEWS.com
-
-
- "U.S.
Eyes Space as Possible Battleground." ... "President
Bush's plan to expand the exploration of space parallels U.S. efforts to
control the heavens for military, economic and strategic gain." ... "Defense
Secretary Donald Rumsfeld long has pushed for technology that could be
used to attack or defend orbiting satellites as well as a costly program,
heavily reliant on space-based sensors, to thwart incoming warheads." ...
"The moon, scientists have said, is a source of potentially unlimited energy
in the form of the helium 3 isotope -- a near perfect fuel source: potent,
nonpolluting and causing virtually no radioactive byproduct in a fusion
reactor." (1, 2)
-By
Jim Wolf -Reuters
- "Spirit
probe rolls onto martian surface." ... "Twelve days
after its bouncy arrival on the Red Planet, the robotic rover Spirit has
rolled off its landing platform for its first spin on martian soil, steered
by Earth-bound NASA engineers sitting 115 million miles away." ... "The
78-second outing took Spirit only about 10 feet (3 meters) straight ahead
but was hailed by project managers at the Pasadena-based Jet Propulsion
Laboratory as a flawless prelude to the six-wheeled craft's historic quest
for signs of life-sustaining water." -Reuters
via -Reuters.co.uk
- "Bush's
Space Vision Thing." ... "Critics will no doubt accuse
President Bush of fiscal folly for proposing a grandiose plan for space
exploration at a time when the nation faces onerous deficits and insufficient
money to meet costly obligations on planet Earth. The critics would be
right that money is short and there are many more important things to do
than put astronauts on the Moon or Mars. But Mr. Bush is a canny enough
politician to avoid committing much money to his new space vision. He calls
for only $1 billion in new financing for NASA over five years and a reallocation
of the current five-year budget of $86 billion. The cost will of course
explode later on, when NASA tries to actually carry out the program. What
Mr. Bush has really done is promise the moon (literally) while leaving
future presidents and Congresses to figure out how to pay the potentially
large future bills while they cope with the severe revenue losses caused
by Mr. Bush's reckless tax cuts." -NYTimes
via -Google-News
- 
-
- "U.S.
to Send India Nuclear, Space Technology: New Delhi
Pledges to Pursue Peaceful Purposes and Help Block Spread of Weapons."
... "President Bush pledged yesterday to help India with its nuclear energy
and space technology in return for India's promise to use the assistance
for peaceful purposes and to help block the spread of dangerous weapons."
... "U.S. officials asserted that India will receive no substantial technology
until the New Delhi government enacts tougher export controls to prevent
the spread of sophisticated science. The Bush administration said the principal
goal is nonproliferation at a time when the administration is stepping
up its efforts to deny weapons of mass destruction to terrorist groups
and pariah governments." -By Peter Slevin
-WashingtonPost
Earth As Art - http://earthasart.gsfc.nasa.gov
Google Search: Johnson-Space-Center Google Search: Kennedy-Space-Center
Google Search: Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel - ASAP
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