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Soyuz brings three station fliers home after 127 days aloft

Three veteran space station fliers strapped into their Soyuz ferry craft, undocked and plunged back to Earth today, making a fiery descent to a frigid pre-dawn landing in Kazakhstan to close out a 127-day stay in space.

With Soyuz commander Yuri Malenchenko strapped into the descent module's center seat, flanked on the left by outgoing Expedition 33 commander Sunita Williams and on the right by Japanese astronaut Akihiko Hoshide, the crew undocked from the station's Russian Rassvet module at 5:26 p.m. EST as the two spacecraft sailed 250 miles above northwestern China.

Two-and-a-half hours later, positioned … Read more

Mars radiation fine for humans, Curiosity finds

"Now, this is the plan. Get your ass to Mars."

We all remember Schwarzenegger motivating himself to go to the Red Planet in "Total Recall" (anyone bother watching the remake?) and sure we'd like to go too. Now NASA's Curiosity Mars rover has determined that radiation levels on the planet's surface are safe for human explorers.

"The astronauts can live in this environment," Don Hassler, principal investigator on Curiosity's Radiation Assessment Detector instrument (RAD), told a news conference.

"Basically, we're finding that the Mars atmosphere is acting as a shield for the radiation on the surface and as the atmosphere gets thicker, that provides more of a shield and therefore we see a dip in our radiation dose," Hassler said.

The findings mark the first time that cosmic rays have been measured on the surface of another planet, and come 100 years after Victor Hess discovered cosmic rays on Earth by using a hot-air balloon.… Read more

Zoom around the vast Milky Way in a browser

In the grand scheme of things, it's fair to say our solar system is very tiny.

You might especially agree with that statement after viewing 100,000 Stars, a Google Chrome Experiment Web page that gives anyone the chance surf around the our slice of the universe from the comfort of their Internet browser. Spacesuit and oxygen supply optional. … Read more

Microsoft hit with lawsuit over Surface's storage space

Microsoft is being sued for allegedly misleading advertising about the amount of storage space in its new 32GB Surface tablet.

The lawsuit was brought by California lawyer Andrew Sokolowski who claims that he bought the device under the premise that he'd get 32GB of storage but soon found out it actually came with much less, according to the Associated Press.

Sokolowski's argument is true. Microsoft's Surface, which hit stores last month, is advertised as having 32GB of storage when in fact there is only 16GB of free storage space for users to fill with music, documents, and … Read more

DARPA SpaceView enlists amateur astronomers

DARPA today announced a new approach to tracking the increasing population of space debris: crowdsourcing. The SpaceView program will reach out to amateur astronomers in helping to protect satellites from what NASA estimates is more than 500,000 pieces of hazardous space debris orbiting the Earth. It's a low-cost way to both improve the scope of the space coverage and better protect assets in space, some of which are satellites providing mission-critical combat support. Decomissioned satellites, spent rocket stages, aluminum oxide slag, and lost tools make up some of the half million pieces of debris -- and the Space … Read more

Where to watch Tuesday's total solar eclipse

Did you know a total solar eclipse occurs tomorrow? Unfortunately, unless you live around certain areas in Australia or find yourself floating in the South Pacific Ocean, you won't really see the full effect -- unless you observe the phenomenon online.

If you want to catch the rare moment where the moon passes between Earth and the sun, Space.com recommends tuning in to the Slooh space camera Web site or a live feed by Tourism Tropical North Queensland on UStream. … Read more

NASA 3D-printing parts for its next rocket headed for Mars

3D printing has captured the imaginations of just about anyone who knows what it is -- even NASA, apparently.

The space agency is using a similar technology to create precise metal parts for its next heavy-lift rocket, which it hopes will eventually help take humans to Mars.

The method is called selective laser melting, or SLM, but it's not quite the same as printing up a sweet "Star Wars" chess set out of extruded plastic. It's more of a cross between 3D printing and some high-end, defense-grade awesome tech.… Read more

Researchers, Lego robot test Internet protocol for space

NASA and the European Space Agency say they have successfully tested an interplanetary communications protocol, with astronauts on the International Space Station using it to control a Lego robot in Germany.

The protocol is called Disruption Tolerant Networking (DTN), and one of its creators is Vint Cerf, who helped come up with the original Internet Protocol suite. NASA and the ESA said on Thursday that DTN may one day allow "internet-like communications" with spaceships and help support infrastructure on other planets.

"The demonstration showed the feasibility of using a new communications infrastructure to send commands to a … Read more

NASA to announce new manned moon missions?

It has been almost 40 years since the Apollo 17 mission last landed a man on the moon. It may not take anywhere near that long before we send astronauts back to the moon's neighborhood.

Space.com reports that NASA is seriously looking at sending out a new manned moon mission with the purpose of creating a manned outpost beyond the far side of moon and eventually visiting an asteroid in 2025. This may not physically land a human on the moon, but it would establish a deep space outpost as a base for research and missions.… Read more