A reader points to remarks by Sir Martin Rees in which he advocates the pursuit of human spaceflight by private organizations rather than by governments: Adventurers to fund space travel, astronomer royal says - BBC News - July.27.10 .
He has been saying this for several years, e.g. see reports here and here. Not all UK scientists agree with him, though, on the lack of value of government human spaceflight as shown here and here.
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There are many sites of great scientific interest to explore on Mars but unfortunately NASA went with one big and expensive lumbering lab rather than several small but highly capable rovers that could be distributed across the Red Planet: Mars site may hold "buried life" - BBC - July.29.10. Yes, I'm well aware of limitations on the DSN and other resources but a billion or so of the overrun for MSL could have been spent instead for upgrades of those systems.
He has been saying this for several years, e.g. see reports here and here. Not all UK scientists agree with him, though, on the lack of value of government human spaceflight as shown here and here.
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There are many sites of great scientific interest to explore on Mars but unfortunately NASA went with one big and expensive lumbering lab rather than several small but highly capable rovers that could be distributed across the Red Planet: Mars site may hold "buried life" - BBC - July.29.10. Yes, I'm well aware of limitations on the DSN and other resources but a billion or so of the overrun for MSL could have been spent instead for upgrades of those systems.
Mission controllers have not heard from Spirit since March 22, and the rover is facing its toughest challenge yet -- trying to survive the harsh Martian winter.
Opportunity's activities were impacted by the Odyssey spacecraft safe-mode event. However, with the recovery of Odyssey, normal operations with the rover have resumed.
Engineers have conducted a fuel tank check of one of NASA's GRAIL mission spacecraft (Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory), scheduled for launch in 2011.
Something unknown is causing a strange, symmetrical structure in the charged-particle environment around Rhea, Saturn's second-largest moon. But contrary to 2008 reports, it's not a system of rings.
The answer to the mystery of dune patterns on Saturn's moon Titan did turn out to be blowing in the wind. It just wasn't from the direction many scientists expected.
The following new images taken by the Imaging Science Subsystem (ISS) on the Cassini spacecraft are now available:
The following new images taken by the Thermal Emission Imaging System (THEMIS) on the Mars Odyssey spacecraft are now available:
A new article in press of the journal Earth and Planetary Science Letters unveils groundbreaking research on the hydrothermal formation of Clay-Carbonate rocks in the Nili Fossae region of Mars. The findings may provide a link to evidence of living organisms on Mars, roughly 4 billion years ago in the Noachian period.
The paper "Hydrothermal formation of Clay-Carbonate alteration assemblag 
In its six-and-a-half years on Mars, NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity had never seen a dust devil before this month, despite some systematic searches in past years and the fact that its twin rover, Spirit, has seen dozens of dust devils at its location halfway around the planet.
A tall column of swirling dust appears in a routine image that Opportunity took with its panoramic came 
Augmentra has announced that its award-winning ViewRanger GPS outdoors navigation system is now available as a Smartphone app for the Apple iPhone (3g, 3gs and 4), iPad, and Android devices. Designed for off-road - and offline - navigation, ViewRanger is the perfect companion for outdoor enthusiasts including campers and hikers, as well as field-based applications such as search-and-rescue. 
INRIX has announced it has expanded its European real-time traffic coverage to 18 countries making it the largest traffic network in Europe.
With the launch of real-time traffic information in Ireland, Hungary, Poland and Slovenia since February, INRIX traffic services now cover more than 1 million kilometers of motorways, city streets and secondary roads, throughout Europe - more than 2X 
The Planetary Society has issued a statement about the request that the U.S. House of Representatives suspend the rules when voting on the NASA Authorization bill:
The U.S. House of Representatives is being asked to bring a highly controversial NASA Authorization bill (H.R. 5781) to the floor for a quick vote before Congress heads out of town for its summer break. The NASA bill would be ta 
Garmin-Asus and Optus have announced a smartphone designed for those looking for a true 'all-in-one' navigation experience to help make sense of life's twists and turns. The Garmin-Asus A50, available exclusively in Australia to Optus customers, is designed to provide a user-friendly, intuitive and consistent mobile navigation experience for consumers.
The Garmin-Asus A50 brings together t 
While audiences at Broadway's "West Side Story" thrill to the on-stage drama, musicians in the orchestra pit are fighting a battle every bit as vicious as the Sharks-Jets rivalry.
This is gang warfare of a high-minded sort, pitting some of New York's best live musicians against a synthesizer they fear will usurp the job of playing Leonard Bernstein's pulsating score.
Sophisticated synthe 
The new movie Agora chronicles the life, challenges and death of Hypatia, a 4th Century woman astronomer whose contribution influenced and shaped modern science and our understanding of the world and the universe. Mabel Armstrong, author of the award-winning book Women Astronomers: Reaching for the Stars, tells Hypatia's story with the joy that a great science teacher (which she was) can bring t 
The answer to the mystery of dune patterns on Saturn's moon Titan did turn out to be blowing in the wind. It just wasn't from the direction many scientists expected.
Basic principles describing the rotation of planetary atmospheres and data from the European Space Agency's Huygens probe led to circulation models that showed surface winds streaming generally east-to-west around Titan's equa 
Future manned missions to the Moon or Mars could use plants as bio-harvesters to extract valuable elements from the alien soils, researchers say.
Now they hope to launch new experiments to follow up on tests done with plants and lunar regolith during NASA's Apollo program that landed men on the Moon.
Lunar regolith is a loose mixture of dust, soil, broken rock and other related mater 
Astronomers have imaged a very young brown dwarf, or failed star, in a tight orbit around a young nearby sun-like star.
An international team led by University of Hawaii astronomers Beth Biller and Michael Liu with help from University of Arizona astronomer Laird Close and UA graduate students Eric Nielsen, Jared Males and Andy Skemer made the rare find using the Near-Infrared Coronagraphi 
Robotic wheelchairs, mechanical arms and humanoid waiters are among the cutting-edge inventions on show at a robotics fair in Japan, a country whose population is ageing rapidly.
To ease the burden in a nation with one of the world's highest life expectancies, engineers have come up with technologies to make life easier for the elderly and disabled, and their caregivers.
A new robot whee 
A remote Canadian island is being used to simulate isolated space flight conditions for a NASA-funded medical research study that could produce important information to assist astronauts in potential long duration flights to Mars or an asteroid.
The Haughton-Mars Project Research Station on Devon Island, well above the Arctic Circle, has many features of isolation and terrain that make it 
An expert panel advising the Japanese government called in a report approved on Thursday for the nation to send a wheeled robot to the moon in five years and to build the first lunar base by 2020.
"It is extremely important to probe the moon... as we now see the dawn of the age of great exploration in the solar system," the report formally adopted by the panel on Thursday said.
"China, I 
Recently, six James Webb Space Telescope beryllium mirror segments completed a series of cryogenic tests at the X-ray and Cryogenic Facility at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala.
During testing, the mirrors were subjected to extreme temperatures dipping to -415 degrees Fahrenheit, permitting NASA contractor engineers to measure in extreme detail how the shape of the mi 
In its six-and-a-half years on Mars, NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity had never seen a dust devil before this month, despite some systematic searches in past years and the fact that its twin rover, Spirit, has seen dozens of dust devils at its location halfway around the planet.
The following new captioned images taken by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft are now available:
A new survey by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has turned up treasures aplenty in the outer regions of the Milky Way, where amidst fogs of interstellar chemicals some rare, young and enormous stars are blasting gas out into space.
Recently, six James Webb Space Telescope beryllium mirror segments completed a series of cryogenic tests at the X-ray & Cryogenic Facility at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala.
In early 2007 New Horizons flew through the Jupiter system, getting a speed-boost from the giant planet's gravity while snapping stunning, close-up images of Jupiter and its largest moons.
New stars are forming inside this giant cloud of dust and gas as seen in infrared light by NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE.
This Hubble Space Telescope picture depicts the galaxy NGC 1533 in the southern constellation of Dorado (the Dolphin-fish).
