In Today’s Deep Space Extra… Explore Mars outlines reasons for red planet exploration. In Hawaii, six scientist/volunteers set out on an eight month Mars mission simulation.
Human Deep Space Exploration
Six essential reasons why we need to send humans to Mars
Fox News (1/17): The reasons for supporting the human exploration of Mars range from scientific discovery and advancing humanity to inspiration and national security. NASA can lead the effort on timescales that do not call for a large increase in annual budgets, writes Chris Carberry, CEO and co-founder of Explore Mars, Inc., in an op-ed.
Houston Chronicle (1/18): In an editorial, the Houston Chronicle calls on the Trump Administration to more clearly define the nation’s space exploration objectives and work with Congress to support the pursuit. The newspaper notes that Houston was the home to Eugene Cernan, who commanded the final Apollo moon landing mission and passed away Monday. Cernan was hopeful his status as the last man to walk on the moon would be overshadowed by new missions of human deep space exploration before his passing.
NASA study in Hawaii paving way for human travel to Mars
Associated Press (1/19): Six volunteer scientists will enter an isolated geodesic dome living quarters for the next eight months on Thursday. They are part of a Mars mission simulation on the Mauna Loa volcano in Hawaii that will help determine the best way to select astronauts, assemble crews and support them during a long journey to the red planet, possibly in the 2030s. As part of the exercise, the simulation astronauts will incorporate a twenty minute delay into their communications with their flight controllers.
Kennedy Space Center honors last man to walk on moon
USA/Florida Today (1/18): Eugene Cernan, commander of NASA’s 1972 Apollo 17 mission, the last human exploration of the moon, was honored on Wednesday at the Kennedy Space Center with an emotional wreath laying ceremony. Cernan, one of three astronauts to travel to the moon twice, died Monday in Houston, after a lingering illness. Cernan was 82.
Astronaut Gene Cernan didn’t just go to the moon, he took us all with him
ABC News (1/18): Former ABC News correspondent Lynn Sherr, recalls Eugene Cernan’s gift for communicating enthusiastically with others. Cernan passed away Monday in Houston. Services are planned for Tuesday, January 24.
Spaceflight Insider (1/18): In 2016, NASA’s Orion deep space exploration capsule underwent rigorous heat shield testing and integration of the crew module adapter for the European Space Agency furnished service module. Now at the Kennedy Space Center, Orion will be turned on electronically this spring and joined with its thermal protection system this summer. All of the work is leading to a crucial test of NASA’s Space Launch System and uncrewed Orion capsule. They are set to launch together in late 2018 as Exploration Mission-1, a three-week mission that will send Orion around the moon and back to Earth for an ocean splashdown and recovery.
Space Science
The $2.4-billion plan to steal a rock from Mars
Nature (1/18): At NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, engineers like Adam Steltzner are working with precision to prepare the agency’s Mars 2020 rover for a bid to gather up to 43 samples of soil, rock and air from the red planet. The samples will be cached so that they can be returned to eager scientists on Earth at some point for studies that could reveal whether the red planet hosts or hosted some form of life. The $2.4 billion mission is high stakes.
NASA’s Curiosity rover explores the mysteries of Martian mud
Popular Mechanics (1/18): NASA’s Curiosity rover, which landed in the red planet’s Gale Crater in 2012, has encountered a mission first, “mud cracks,” or soil formations that may help to explain how Mars transitioned billions of years ago from warm and wet to cold and dry.
Low Earth Orbit
2016 was the hottest year yet, scientists declare
National Public Radio (1/18): Scientists from NASA and NOAA on Wednesday provided statistics that show 2016 was the world’s warmest year yet and the third year in a row that temperatures have increased. Temperature tracking began in 1880.
McCain proposes dramatic spending boost for defense, including space
Spacepolicyonline.com (1/17): U.S. Senator John McCain, who chairs the Armed Services Committee, proposes a $430 billion increase in defense spending over the next five years, with some of the new spending going to military space initiatives.
Astronaut Scott Kelly talks pollution, Russia and his year in space
Palm Springs Desert Sun of California (1/16): In remarks earlier this week, Scott Kelly, who set a record aboard the International Space Station in 2015-16 for the longest spaceflight by an American, recalled the camaraderie with his Russian crew mates and the views of Earth, including a shrinking rain forest and the pall of pollution. “You just get the feeling that we are all part of one spaceship, Spaceship Earth, that is floating through our solar system,” said Kelly, who retired from NASA after returning to Earth. “You really get this perspective, from being in space for a very long time that we need to take care of ourselves and we also need to take better care of our planet.”
Suborbital
You could soon be traveling across the world on rockets, not planes: Virgin Galactic CEO
CNBC (1/18): Suborbital rocket flights like those planned by Virgin Galactic could open the way to global point to point passenger travel, according to George Whitesides, the company’s chief executive, in an interview at the World Economic Forum in Davos.