nasa

Space architect John Spencer has a grand vision for the future of space travel -- one with luxury space yachts and hotels, and dune buggy racing on the moon.

It's all going to happen in the "not too distant future," the founder of the Space Tourism Society told CNET recently.

"The more people who go, the more diversity, the more things you can do -- the more they need to buy goods and services," he said. "It's limited to what they can do now because of the cost and limited time on board … Read more

After 33 missions into space over a 30-year career, NASA's Space Shuttle Atlantis has found a permanent base close to home. The shuttle is part of a new $100 million visitor center exhibit at the Kennedy Space Center Visitors Complex which will immerse visitors in the experience of space travel.

The exhibit opens June 29 and will weave first-hand accounts from astronauts and flight engineers, along with the history of NASA, into 60 interactive displays. The displays will touch on everything from launches and orbits to how a space station is assembled.

But the centerpiece of the exhibit is Atlantis. Visitors will able to get an up-close, 360-degree view of one of the world's first reusable spacecraft. Robert Z. Pearlman of collectSpace.com recently toured the exhibit during a preview of the grand opening this week.… Read more

The past three weeks of Always On showcased the roles tech can play in your summer vacation. In some cases, we determined whether or not your tech can survive your summer vacation. Now this episode doesn't involve snapping photos of spinner dolphins, desert road tripping in a tricked-out RV, or fitness tracking through mud at an average of 8,150 feet of elevation. But just because we're finally back home in the Bay Area doesn't mean we took a break from turning our environment into a tech battleground.

We start things off with an unboxing of the … Read more

NASA is going big. Very big. The space agency used technology from panoramic equipment and software company GigaPan to help stitch together a massive image of the surface of Mars that hits 1.3 billion pixels. The interactive view of the Rocknest landscape is courtesy of the Curiosity rover.

It took the rover's three cameras and image collection activities spread over several different days to gather all the visual data. This is the first NASA-produced image from the surface of Mars to top the 1-billion-pixel mark… Read more

Are you up for a challenge? How about a Grand Challenge? NASA on Tuesday issued a Grand Challenge aimed at locating all asteroid threats to Earth and figuring out what to do about them.

It seems the asteroid threat has really picked up steam lately. We've had some close fly-bys. Some scientists have suggested nuking asteroids if they get too near. NASA has an initiative to lasso an asteroid for closer study. It's been asteroid fever around the planet lately.… Read more

Here on planet Earth we're used to flames -- whether from a candle or campfire -- reaching upward to the sky with slender limbs hungry for oxygen and driven by rising hot air. But in space, sans our planet's strong gravitational pull, flames are more likely to take the shape of eerie fireballs.

Within the flame of a regular candle wick, there's quite a bit going on. As the video below released this week by NASA explains, molecules from the wick are being cracked apart and vaporized by the flame, then combined with oxygen to produce light, heat, carbon dioxide, and water, as well as soot.

In recent years we've become quite familiar with how flames can extend and expand quickly in their greedy quest for more fuel and oxygen; witness countless western wildfires of the past decade. But researchers aboard the International Space Station have observed that flames in microgravity behave much differently, staying in a small spherical shape and letting oxygen molecules come to them.… Read more

Here's another accomplishment that NASA's Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity Rover can add to its resume: the Mars-trotting robot will soon become an official Lego model.

Lego recently announced Curiosity's new gig after wrapping up its formal review process of creations that passed 10,000 votes on Lego's Kickstarter-esque Web site Cuusoo. Ironically, mechanical engineer Stephen Pakbaz, who worked on Curiosity for NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, created the design for the 1:20 scale Lego version of the rover. … Read more

Supermoons can tend to get doomsdayers revved up.

Besides being a remarkable sight to behold, the massive moon also comes with the mythical stigma of causing a handful of natural disasters, including earthquakes and tsunamis, floods, typhoons, and cyclones.

And, this year's supermoon is quickly upon us. It will be shining its light next weekend on June 23. On that day, the moon will appear bigger and brighter, and be closer to Earth than it's been all year -- a total of 221,824 miles away, which is roughly 30,000 miles closer than when it's at … Read more

Walks by the river can clear your head, open your eyes, and soothe your inner flow.

It's possible that you even espy unusual things along the banks -- peculiar voles, moles, or holes that conjure stories in your head.

Phil Green was wandering along the Merrimack River in Massachusetts when he discovered a piece of rock that didn't seem like it was from around his parts.

He told CBS Boston: "There she was just sitting there, sticking up like that, and I said heck what is this. It just didn't belong."

Yes, greenish rocks tend … Read more