Via Science daily:

"A small fission-based nuclear reactor coupled with a Stirling engine could provide up to 40 kilowatts of usable energy, enough to support a moon base or Mars outpost," said Houts. That's about the same amount of power needed to supply eight houses on Earth, NASA officials have said."

Via Space.com:

Since man first touched the moon and brought pieces of it back to Earth, scientists have thought that the lunar surface was bone dry. But new observations from three different spacecraft have put this notion to rest with what has been called "unambiguous evidence" of water across the surface of the moon.

AKRON, OHIO, August 3, 2009 – The National Aeronautics and Space
Administration (NASA) and The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company have
developed an airless tire to transport large, long-range vehicles
across the surface of the moon.

The new "Spring Tire" with 800 load bearing springs is designed to
carry much heavier vehicles over much greater distances than the wire
mesh tire previously used on the Apollo Lunar Roving Vehicle (LRV).
The new tire will allow for broader exploration and the eventual
development and maintenance of a lunar outpost.

According to Vivake Asnani, NASA’s principal investigator at the Glenn
Research Center in Cleveland, this was a significant change in
requirements that required innovation. "With the combined requirements
of increased load and life, we needed to make a fundamental change to
the original moon tire," he said. "What the Goodyear-NASA team
developed is an innovative, yet simple network of interwoven springs
that does the job. The tire design seems almost obvious in retrospect,
as most good inventions do."

The Spring Tire was installed on NASA’s Lunar Electric Rover test
vehicle and put through its paces at the Johnson Space Center’s "Rock
Yard" in Houston where it performed successfully.

"This tire is extremely durable and extremely energy efficient," noted
Jim Benzing, Goodyear’s lead innovator on the project. "The spring
design contours to the surface on which it’s driven to provide
traction. But all of the energy used to deform the tire is returned
when the springs rebound. It doesn’t generate heat like a normal tire.

According to Goodyear engineers, development of the original Apollo
lunar mission tires, and the new Spring Tire were driven by the fact
that traditional rubber, pneumatic (air-filled) tires used on Earth
have little utility on the moon. This is because rubber properties
vary significantly between the extreme cold and hot temperatures
experienced in the shaded and directly sunlit areas of the moon.
Furthermore, unfiltered solar radiation degrades rubber, and pneumatic
tires pose an unacceptable risk of deflation.

more
movie

Via Nu.nl:

CAPE CANAVERAL - De Amerikaanse ruimtevaartorganisatie NASA heeft donderdagavond van de ruimtebasis Cape Canaveral met succes een satelliet en een sonde gelanceerd. Daarmee moet de basis zijn gelegd voor toekomstige maanmissies.

Door slecht weer was de lancering 20 minuten later dan aanvankelijk de bedoeling was. De belangrijkste van de twee satellieten is de LRO (Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter).

Die zal een jaar lang op lage hoogte rond de maan draaien om het oppervlak nauwkeurig in kaart te brengen.

Aan de hand daarvan kunnen wetenschappers geschikte landingsplekken voor nieuwe maanverkenners uitzoeken.

Xenology = the scientific study of all aspects of extraterrestrial life, intelligence, and civilization

Zojuist een artikel gepost over Nanotechnologie op mijn Transhumanisme-website. Terzijde kwam ik daarbij op de Von Neuman-probe, de zelf-replicerende ruimtevaartuigen. Ook Robert Freitas heeft daarover geschreven.

A company that has built mini-biospheres for orbiting space stations says it's ready for the next giant leap: growing flowers on the moon.

"It's all very aggressive," Taber MacCallum, chief executive officer of Arizona-based Paragon Space Development Corp., said of his company's plan to send a miniature greenhouse to the lunar surface. "But it isn't fun if it isn't aggressive."

Paragon's "Lunar Oasis" would piggyback on a lunar lander currently being developed by Odyssey Moon to vie for a share of the $30 million Google Lunar X Prize. Details of the partnership are to be publicized Friday during a news conference at Paragon's headquarters in Tucson, Ariz.

Read more....
Op onderstaande video praat Robert Richards van Orbiter Moon over het nieuwe ruimteonderzoek en de GoogleLunar X Prize.

Via Spaceflightnow:

Posted: January 28, 2009

PASADENA, Calif. - The team operating NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit plans diagnostic tests this week after Spirit did not report some of its weekend activities, including a request to determine its orientation after an incomplete drive.

WASHINGTON -- On Wednesday, NASA issued a request for proposals for
concept definition and requirements analysis support for the Altair
lunar lander. Proposals are due to NASA's Johnson Space Center in
Houston by 2 p.m. CST on Feb. 27.

NASA's Constellation Program will use Altair to land four astronauts
on the moon following launch aboard an Ares V rocket and rendezvous
in low Earth orbit with the Orion crew vehicle. The lunar lander will
provide the astronauts with life support and a base for weeklong
initial surface exploration missions of the moon. Altair also will
return the crew to the Orion spacecraft that will return them home to
Earth.

This contract will provide resources to conduct NASA-directed
engineering tasks in support of evaluating vehicle conceptual
designs, maturing the vehicle design and reviewing the products for
system requirements reviews and system definition reviews. It is
anticipated that multiple awards will be made as a result of this
solicitation.

Johnson will manage the contracts, which will be awarded through a
full and open competition. The selections will be made in the spring
of 2009.

More information about the request for proposal.

Veertig jaar geleden waren Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and Bill Anders de eerste mensen die een ander hemellichaam bezochten met hun Apollo 8 "rondje rond de Maan", daarmee zagen ze als eerste de achterkant van de Maan. De legendarische vlucht zou later overschaduwd worden door het nog grotere succes van de Apollo 11 missie, die immers de eerste mensen op een ander hemellichaam liet rondlopen, maar dit succes zou niet mogelijk zijn geweest zonder de voorafgaande stappen.
Het hoogtepunt van de vlucht was kerstavond 1968; terwijl op aarde de westerse wereld naar vers opgetuigde boom en stal keken genoten de astronauten van een uitzicht dat niemand had: de Maan en, in de verte, moeder aarde. Het inspireerde tot de beroemde kerstboodschap: een stuk uit Genesis.
Gelovig of niet: zo'n stuk maakt indruk. Op het mooie van alles, en op wat wij mensen toch maar kunnen bereiken. Rentmeesters van de schepping in plaats van renteniers.
Gelukkig zijn de oude beelden te vinden op het Web.
Colin McKellar heeft nog meer Apollo 8 video's op zijn website Honeysuckle Creek Tracking Station

Ook de NASA herdenkt de kerstboodschap van de Apollo 8 vlucht.

Via Spaceflightnow:

NASA and the European Space Agency have agreed on a strategic partnership for future robotic missions to explore Mars, officials announced last week.

Ed Weiler, the associate administrator for NASA's science mission directorate, unveiled the plan during a Thursday news conference announcing a two-year delay of the agency's next Mars rover.

An artist's concept of Europe's proposed ExoMars rover. Credit: ESA