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Submission + - NASA's New Horizons focuses on Pluto's largest moon Charon (examiner.com)

Submitted by MarkWhittington
MarkWhittington writes: New Horizons has already discovered much of what was previously unknown about Pluto, the dwarf planet that is the former ninth planet from the sun. NASA reported that the space probe has also uncovered some of the secrets of Pluto’s largest moon, Charon. It has found indications of impact craters on the moon’s gray surface as well as a chasm that seems to be bigger than the Grand Canyon on Earth. Charon has a diameter of just 1440 miles. Bu contrast, Earth has a diameter of 7918 miles.

Submission + - Boeing patents an engine run by laser generated fusion explosions (examiner.com)

Submitted by MarkWhittington
MarkWhittington writes: Boeing has had a patent approved for an aircraft engine that uses laser generated nuclear fusion as a power source, according to a story in Business Insider. The idea is already generating a great deal of controversy, according to the website Counter Punch. The patent has generated fears of what might happen if an aircraft containing radioactive material as fuel were to crash, spreading such fuel across the crash site.

Submission + - Presidential candidate Jeb Bush proposes more funding for NASA (examiner.com)

Submitted by MarkWhittington
MarkWhittington writes: According to a story in the Huffington Post, former Florida governor and current presidential candidate Jeb Bush suggested that if he were elected president he would increase funding for NASA, pronouncing himself a “space guy.” Bush made this statement at a meeting with the New Hampshire Union Leader’s editorial board. This makes Bush the second presidential candidate, after Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, to express an opinion about the space program.

Bush did not expand on this singular statement. Questions concerning NASA’s support for commercial space and where astronauts should go beyond low-Earth orbit, the moon, Mars, and/or Earth approaching asteroids, were left unanswered for the time being

Submission + - As Google tests its driverless cars in Austin, the age of autonomous taxis nears (examiner.com)

Submitted by MarkWhittington
MarkWhittington writes: The Wall Street Journal reported that Google has started testing its self-driving car in Austin, Texas. These cars, equipped with a suite of sensors and GPS transponders, have started rolling around an area northeast and north of downtown Austin. The purpose of the test drives is to see if the car’s software works in driving conditions outside of California and to develop a detailed map of Austin city streets. Each self-driving car has two human drivers ready to assume manual control if something goes wrong.

Submission + - Is NASA planning to 'terraform' part of the moon? Not quite (examiner.com)

Submitted by MarkWhittington
MarkWhittington writes: A story in Popular Science suggested that NASA is mulling a plan to “terraform” part of the moon. The term is more than a little misleading, as it implies making a portion of the moon livable for humans. The actual plan, being funded by the space agency as part of NASA's Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) Program is exciting nevertheless.

The idea is to deploy reflectors around the rim of the Shackleton Crater, a region at the moon’s South Pole where ice is thought to exist in permanent shadows. The reflectors would focus light onto select areas to provide power for robotic explorers. In this manner, the robots would not have to be equipped with protection against the cold inside the crater and would not have to be powered by plutonium-fueled RTGs. Temperatures inside the shadowed regions of Shackleton plunge to minus 280 degrees Fahrenheit.

Submission + - In the wake of the Emanuel AME Church Massacre, time to ban the series 'Firefly (examiner.com)

Submitted by MarkWhittington
MarkWhittington writes: In the wake of the massacre at the Emanuel AME Church, America seems to be bent on eradicating even the hint of any symbol regarding the Confederacy, from removing the Confederate battle flag from public spaces to even deleting Civil War computer games. Serious people have proposed banning “Gone With the Wind” and sanitizing “The Dukes of Hazzard.” Others have advocated blowing up the Jefferson Memorial and other monuments to famous Southerners whether they had anything to do with the Civil War or not.

However, if America is serious about expunging any hint of the Confederacy, it must even ferret out cultural artifacts that cloak it in allegory and symbolism. So, it is time to follow a modest proposal that the old, cult science fiction TV series “Firefly” be banned from the airwaves and DVDs and video downloads of the series be abolished. And other manifestations of the series, such as online games, must be deleted.

Submission + - DARPA is already working on designer organisms to terraform Mars (examiner.com)

Submitted by MarkWhittington
MarkWhittington writes: Space visionaries dream of a time when human beings will not only settle Mars, but will terraform the Red Planet into something more Earth-like, with a breathable atmosphere, running water, and a functioning biosphere. Evidence exists that Mars was more or less Earth-like billions of years ago before the atmosphere leached away into space and the water became frozen under the ground and at the poles. Terraforming Mars is decades away from the beginning and probably centuries away from the end. But DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, is already genetically engineering organisms that will help turn the Red Planet blue, according to a story in Motherboard.

Submission + - Gizmodo article accuses America of space imperialism during Apollo program (examiner.com)

Submitted by MarkWhittington
MarkWhittington writes: Gizmodo, as part of a series of stories about space, ran a piece called ‘What is Stopping Us from Building Cities in Space? No, it’s not Tech.” The article attempts to examine some of the political impediments that have stymied the settlement of the high frontier. Unfortunately, the piece would have been more convincing had it not been for one rather glaring error.

The piece suggested that the United States attempted to claim the moon as sovereign territory when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin planted the American flag at Tranquility Base on July 20, 1969. “So much of what seems to motivate any space exploration is the concept of flag planting, which the US pretty much invented: I HEREBY CLAIM THIS MOON FOR AMERICA.” Nothing, in fact, could be further from the truth

Submission + - Russian official calls for 'international investigation' of the Apollo program (examiner.com)

Submitted by MarkWhittington
MarkWhittington writes: According to a Tuesday article in the Moscow Times, a spokesman for Russia’s Investigative Committee named Vladimir Markin suggested that an international investigation be mounted into some of the “various murky details surrounding the U.S. moon landings between 1969 and 1972.” Markin would particularly like to know some of the missing moon rocks went to and why the original footage of the Apollo 11 moon landing was erased. Markin hastened to add that he is, of course, not suggesting that NASA faked the moon landings and just filmed the events in a studio.

Submission + - Astrobotic to take Mexican payload to the moon (examiner.com)

Submitted by MarkWhittington
MarkWhittington writes: One of the great results of the commercial space revolution, which promises to lower the cost of space travel, is the opportunities it opens for countries and private entities to operate in space who would not otherwise be able to do so. The latest example of this phenomenon is the agreement by Astrobotic, one of the competitors in the Google Lunar X Prize, to take a yet to be determined payload provided by the Agencia Espacial Mexicana, according to a story in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. The arrangement will help Mexico become the first Latin American country to land and operate a payload on the lunar surface.

Submission + - Self-driving cars to impact everything from insurance to policing to healthcare (examiner.com)

Submitted by MarkWhittington
MarkWhittington writes: The advent of commercially available self-driving cars is about five years away, but already some are thinking about how they will disrupt the economy and how society operates in general. The Wall Street Journal suggested that one industry that will suffer is that of auto insurance. Since the vast majority of auto accidents are caused by human error, the more self-driving cars that are on the road, the fewer accidents will occur. Such accidents that would happen would be the result of hardware and software malfunctions. Insurance for self-driving cars would more resemble product liability coverage than the sort of auto insurance we have today.

Indeed, the technology will also likely impact diverse industries such as auto mechanics, taxi services, and health care, as well as policing.

Submission + - Neil deGrasse Tyson urges America to challenge China to a space race (examiner.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: According to a Tuesday story in the UK edition of the International Business Times, Neil degrease Tyson, the celebrity astrophysicist and media personality, advocated a space race between the United States and China. The idea is that such a race would spur innovation and cause industry to grow. The Apollo race to the moon caused a similar explosive period of scientific research and engineering development.

Submission + - Newt Gingrich calls for doubling federal medical research at NIH (examiner.com) 1

Submitted by MarkWhittington
MarkWhittington writes: Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich published an oped in the New York Times calling for the doubling of the National Institutes for Health, currently at $31 billion. The idea, coming from Gingrich, is not as crazy as it may sound at first glance. Gingrich helped to start the ball rolling the last time the NIH budget was doubled, starting in the late 1990s. Gingrich has also been an advocate of science research as a means of benefiting the country.

Gingrich presents his case as a means of real health care reform, not from layering on more bureaucracy, but in finding cures and treatments for diseases.

Submission + - European Space Agency invited to contribute a lander to NASA's Europa Clipper (examiner.com)

Submitted by MarkWhittington
MarkWhittington writes: According to a Friday story in Spaceflight Now, NASA has invited the European Space Agency to participate in its upcoming Europa Clipper project. Europa Clipper, pushed by Rep. John Culberson, the chair of the House Appropriations subcommittee that oversees NASA, recently received backing from the Obama administration. Europa Clipper would launch in the early 2020s and would be placed in an orbit around Jupiter that would cause it to fly by Europa, a moon of Jupiter, at least 45 times during its operational life.

Submission + - Idea floated to send the Asteroid Redirect Mission to Phobos (examiner.com)

Submitted by MarkWhittington
MarkWhittington writes: At a meeting of the NASA Advisory Council, the subject of the Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM) came up. According to both NASA Watch’s Keith Cowing and the Houston Chronicle’s Eric Berger, an idea was floated to send the ARM to Phobos, a moon of Mars, instead of an asteroid to be named later. The idea is that the ARM mission would travel all the way to Mars orbit, using a solar electric propulsion system, and then collect a boulder from Phobos and return it to a retrograde lunar orbit.

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