moon

Atlas 5 rocket launches NASA moon mission

An Atlas 5 rocket thundered to life and streaked into space Thursday, hurling two NASA spacecraft toward the moon for a $583 million mission to scout out landing sites for future manned missions and to search for evidence of hidden ice near its frigid poles.

One spacecraft will map the cratered surface from a perilously low 31-mile-high orbit while the other will blast out 350 tons of pulverized rock and soil for chemical analysis, digging a shallow 66-foot-wide crater in a kamikaze crash visible from Earth.

"First, we want to identify safe landing sites," said project scientist Rich … Read more

NASA kick-starting lunar science

MOFFETT FIELD, Calif.--If you're in the planning stages of sending people back to the moon, as NASA is, you'd better know as much as possible about it.

That's one of the reasons NASA launched, in late 2007, the Lunar Science Institute (LSI), an organization with an annual budget of $10 million for the study and research of the moon, as well as the role of supporting and inspiring new generations of lunar scientists.

According to Greg Schmidt, LSI's deputy director, it is a "virtual" institute with a staff of just eight or nine … Read more

Shady program

MB Moon Phase is a program that lets you calculate a moon's phase on a particular date, but that's its lone feature. According to the publisher's description, the program is free, but further inspection revealed a trial of 30 days and a donation once the trial expires.

When first installed, we were greeted with a ridiculously cluttered window full of donation requests. We had to root through the clutter to find the button that would let us continue with the program. From there, we were greeted with yet another cluttered interface. We entered a specific date and … Read more

More competitors for Google Lunar X Prize

More scientists and engineers are about to join the international race to the moon sponsored by Google and the X Prize Foundation.

The foundation announced Thursday it will introduce two new Google Lunar X Prize teams to its already weighty roster of 14 competitors. The announcement will be made Tuesday via a teleconference from Google headquarters. Although the X Prize Foundation organizes a number of innovation competitions, the Google Lunar X Prize is sponsored in conjunction with Google.

Team LunaTrex will also have an announcement to make at that time, according to the foundation.

Then on Wednesday, Google and the … Read more

Lunar satellite mission on track for 2014 launch

A United Kingdom-led mission to put a satellite in orbit around the moon, potentially enabling lunar colonists to use mobile phones to communicate with each other, has inched a step closer to blastoff.

The British National Space Centre has announced that it will undertake a technical-feasibility study of the MoonLITE, or Moon Lightweight Interior and Telecom Experiment, mission, which Lord Drayson, the U.K. minister of state for science and innovation, said could help answer fundamental questions about the composition of the moon.

The study will report with a full mission schedule and costs late next year. It is expected … Read more

Buzz Out Loud 854: Death to the Moon

We thought about calling this podcast graves in space, or delicious Yak, or Jason makes the earth move. But soup_n_salad in the chat room nailed it. A new company wants to send 5,000 capsules full of cremated remains to the moon for burial. Natali and Jason think this is littering, essentially. I think they gotta go somewhere and the Moon has space. We also talk about the new Asus phone, Flash on Windows mobile, and more. Listen now: Download today's podcast EPISODE 854

Obama can’t use his BlackBerry http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/16/us/politics/16blackberry.html… Read more

Lunar Rover has suits for two

Earlier this year NASA demonstrated its Chariot Lunar Rover concept, and now the space agency is demonstrating its adoption of modern automotive industrial practices by applying platform engineering to the Chariot, coming up with the Small Pressurized Rover (SPR). Built on the Chariot platform, the SPR is one variation of a lunar vehicle being tested by NASA. It uses a pressurized cabin that can seat two comfortably, or four in an emergency. Astronauts could view the surface of the moon, performing tests and experiments, in T-shirts. Instead of using a bulky airlock, the SPR has two extra vehicular-activity suits attached to sealable ports. An astronaut can enter the suit from inside the SPR, detach it, pick up some moon rocks or help build a lunar colony, then reattach to the SPR and climb back into the cabin. … Read more

Three weeks left to launch your name into space

If you want to make it to the moon but don't have the chops to be an astronaut, the deadline is approaching to at least send your name around Earth's orbiting rock.

June 27 marks the last day to enter your information on the Web to send your name to the moon with the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO). Your name will be incorporated in a database and loaded onto a microchip built into the LRO spacecraft. The service is free and comes with a printable certificate assuring you that you are indeed a part of the LRO experience. … Read more

Studio C interview/performance: Mark Kozelek

With a new Sun Kil Moon LP, as well as Retribution Gospel Choir's debut album (which he produced), a book, and a movie score all coming out this year, it's safe to say Mark Kozelek is a prolific artist. He sat down with us here at Studio C in San Francisco for a rare interview (he doesn't do them often) to discuss all his projects and to play us some new solo songs from is new album April.

Wii virtual console releases for this week

Looks like the days of the triple-update are long gone as this week is another two-game showdown on the Virtual Console.

Harvest Moon (1997, SNES, 800 Wii points): What's considered to be a relatively rare title is no longer scarce as Harvest Moon makes its way to the virtual console today. The game is basically a farm simulator in which you must raise livestock and grow crops in addition to turning a run-down farm into a thriving success. Lords of Thunder (1993, Turbografx 16, 800 Wii points): Lords of Thunder is a side-scrolling shooter with a heavy-metal soundtrack. Blast … Read more