Astronauts say ET life must exist

We will eventually find life in space. That from the crew of the Space Shuttle Endeavour.
“If we push back boundaries far enough, I’m sure eventually we’ll find something out there,” said Mike Foreman, a mission specialist on the Endeavour, which returned to Earth in March.
“Maybe not as evolved as we are, but it’s hard to [...]

First spacewalk in HD

Over 100 hours of NASA’s glory days (hopefully there are more to come*) have been digitally remastered for a Discovery Channel documentary. “When We Left Earth: The NASA Missions” will air this summer, but we already have a sneak peak at how amazing it’s going to be. Here is America’s first spacewalk from Gemini 4 [...]

HD Earth-rise from Moon

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency released pictures and video of an Earth-rise captured from its HD lunar explorer “KAGUYA.” The pictures are below and the video is here.

See also:
+ First HD view of the moon

Space junk

There are around 10,000 cataloged debris objects — from wrenches to fuel tanks — floating around in space. Here’s a cool screencap from the European Space Agency’s tracking system:

First HD view of the Moon

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency released the first HDTV view of the Moon this week. You can watch the movie here.

Satellite shoot down was reckless

I was relieved to find out today that I am not the only one who found last week’s satellite shoot down to be completely unnecessary. To believe the rationale provided by the Bush administration and military, that chemical gas was going to contaminate the atmosphere wreaking death upon a random populous, required the active suspension [...]

US rejects Russo-Sino space weapons ban

GENEVA — The Russian foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, on Tuesday presented a Russian-Chinese draft treaty banning weapons in space to the United Nations Conference on Disarmament, an idea that was quickly rejected by the United States.
Russia and China know they are far behind the United States in the development of space technology. What concerns [...]

Sydney to London in 45 Minutes

Something to think about:
INITIALLY dismissed as another Richard Branson publicity stunt, Virgin Galactic is starting to attract serious attention as the potential of the British entrepreneur’s ambitious space venture hits home.
It may still be early days, but some observers are already cautiously predicting Galactic will be a turning point in the commercial development [...]

Space Gurus Snub Lunar Base, Set Sights on Asteroids, Mars

If we don’t put a man on Mars in my lifetime, I’m going to be very disappointed.
We put many men on the moon almost 40 years ago. In the meantime, instead of attempting to do something extraordinary, we’ve pissed our money away on such hits as the International Space Station and the Space Shuttle program. Neither [...]

‘Is Space Exploration Worth the Cost?’

There’s a really interesting post on the Freakonomics blog. They pose the question “Is Space Exploration Worth the Cost?” Six space gurus were asked to answer.
Keith Cowing’s response caught my eye:
For those who would moan that this money could be “better spent back on Earth,” I would simply say that all of this [...]

Star Explosion

One of the top space photos of 2007.

House says no to men on Mars

Our space program is missing the point.