Lunar News Network

Moon Smashing

Some necessary prep work will soon be done for the lunar program (Space.com - NASA Takes Aim at Moon with Double Sledgehammer):

NASA's previous Lunar Prospector mission detected large amounts of hydrogen at the moon's poles before crashing itself into a crater at the lunar South Pole. Now the much larger Lunar Crater and Observation Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) mission, set for a February 2009 moon crash, will take aim and discover whether some of that hydrogen is locked away in the form of frozen water.

Why is this important? Well, we can use the hydrogen and oxygen in the frozen water for fuel, it's a sort of "live off the land" approach that will be vital to really getting the next stage of lunar exploration and settlement going.

China Moon

The race to the Moon is heating up (Forbes - A New Space Race?):

China has plans to expand its lunar program, with the goal of putting an unmanned vehicle on the Moon by 2012 and sending people there by 2020. At the moment, China does not have plans to send people to Mars. [...] For the moment, China’s space program seems to be an effort to get a technological leg up on nations like Japan, which launched a lunar space probe last year, and India, which plans to do the same thing soon.

Lunar X Prize

Here is the latest from the lunar Googleplex (NYT - A Google Competition, With a Robotic Moon Landing as a Goal):

The return to the moon is part of the Google Lunar X Prize, a competition sponsored by Google with $30 million in prizes for the first two teams to land a robotic rover on the moon and send images and other data back home. At Google’s headquarters here on Thursday, 10 teams from five countries announced their intention to participate in the competition. They include a team led by William L. Whitaker, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University and renowned roboticist; an affiliation of four universities and two major aerospace companies in Italy; and one group that is a loose association of engineers coordinating their efforts online.

This is a private effort that I see as a wonderful adjunct to the NASA effort, it can promote space exploration, increase public support and enthusiasm, and inspire new generations of students to study science. Go Google!

What If: Kennedy and the Space Age

The fate of Apollo had President Kennedy not been assassinated in 1963 is one of the biggest what-if questions in the history of the Space Age. Dwayne Day discusses (The Space Review: Part 1 , Part 2) such questions and the potential outcomes as suggested by the historical record.

Glenn Orbits Earth

The New York Times On This Day section reminds us that it was on this date in 1962 that astronaut John Glenn became the first American to orbit Earth as he flew aboard the Friendship 7 Mercury capsule.

Candidates Views on Science

Happy President's Day! This is the perfect time to blog more on presidential politics. I know, you've probably heard a lot about that by now and maybe you need a break. Well, if this is a holiday weekend for you, then take a break and then come back tomorrow to check out Physics Today, they have a nice review of Where Do They Stand On Science:

In 1976, when Jimmy Carter was running for President against Gerald Ford, science was not high on the political agenda. Physics Today tried to change that by asking the candidates their views on the importance of science advisers, the value of nuclear power in the US energy mix, and the federal government’s role in supporting basic and applied science. The Physics Today political blog continues that 32-year tradition by posting the positions of the current group of candidates on science issues.

You can browse the site by date, by candidate, or by the six questions they asked of the candidates.  This makes for interesting reading. Unfortunately, none of the six questions are specifically about space exploration goals and priorities, so you won't find out if they support the Vision for Space Exploration. Still, it's interesting reading.

Space Settlement Art

Here is some very cool space art accepted by the NSS Space Settlement Calendar Committee as entries in the NSS Space Settlement 2009 Calendar Art Contest. My favorite: Moonbase One

Clinton's Position on Space Exploration

If you are a voter interested in science and technology issues, head over to Popular Mechanics and Geek the Vote. They break down major sci-tech issues by candidate so you can find out exactly where they stand. According to their report, Clinton supports the VSE, but the report offers very little in the way of specifics. Would it be fully funded? It's not clear from the information collected by Popular Mechanics.

NASA Budget News

Some good news on the budget front: (Wired News - 2009 NASA Budget: Moon Missions on Track with Science and Climate Change Thrown In)

Yesterday, the White House released their 2009 NASA budget that Congress will amend, rework and hopefully pass by the end of the 2008 fiscal year. You can see some responsiveness to the science and environmental communities with increased dollars for the science directorate and two additional climate change monitoring missions added in. [...] Funding for the human lunar missions, the COTS program (which invests lightly in alternative commercial paths to Low Earth Orbit), and fulfilling our international commitments remained intact.