“Space exploration” on The Daily Caller

(CNN) — South Korea’s missing space rocket may have crashed shortly after liftoff Thursday, the Yonhap news agency reported. (more)

The successful launch of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket into orbit last week once again pushed the private space race back into the spotlight. While the Falcon 9 is slated to begin carrying cargo to the International Space Station, it is also designed so that it could one day carry human passengers as well. With the Falcon 9 making it to orbit on the first try, it undoubtedly gave a boost to the private space industry. (more)

WASHINGTON — Neil A. Armstrong, the most famous man in the history of NASA and the first man to walk on the moon, on Wednesday sharply criticized President Obama’s plan to cancel the space agency’s program to send astronauts back to the moon. (more)

NASA is getting hit up for extra launch passes, and mission stickers and pins are flying off the shelf. Another Twittering crowd is descending on the space center. Even science fiction writers want in on the action. (more)

A special mission to the Red Planet has revealed the likely presence of a form of pond scum – the building blocks of life as we know it. (more)

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Space shuttle Discovery is back on Earth. (more)

On the 20th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing, President George H.W. Bush capitalized on the excitement surrounding the commemoration of the landmark spacewalk by announcing big goals for the U.S. space program. In remarks delivered at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum on July 20, 1989, he said the U.S. would go, “Back to the moon: back to the future. And this time, back to stay,” hinting at the much promised manned moon base that was supposed to have gotten under way in the 1970s. He also said the U.S. would launch a manned mission to Mars. Though Bush’s announcement served to excite NASA and the public, the numbers weren’t pretty. A NASA study estimated the long-term cost of Bush’s plan would be approximately $500 billion — a staggering figure, even when spread across 20 to 30 years. As a result, NASA transitioned away from human exploration and focused on earth and space science. (more)

They’ve lived with each other for extended periods of time in very close quarters, but that doesn’t mean America’s astronauts see eye-to-eye. (more)

When Discovery’s six astronauts take the final space shuttle ride to orbit in September, there’ll be one more rider sitting in the back of the bus: Robonaut 2, the semi-humanoid robot created by NASA and GM. (more)

The first man to walk on the moon blasted President Barack Obama’s decision to cancel NASA’s back-to-the-moon program on Tuesday, saying that the move is “devastating” to America’s space effort. (more)

Those who have had the honor to work in and around the White House understand that in reality, the president has a limited and shrinking power-base. Every day and in almost every way, Congress seeks to weaken that base while transferring more of the executive branch authority to its own body. (more)

When America’s space shuttle program ends in September, the U.S. will be completely dependent on Russian rockets for launching men and women into space — and bringing them back. But what will happen to America’s astronauts if relations between the U.S. and Russia sour? (more)

Astronauts moved a cargo module the size of a mini bus the short distance from space shuttle Discovery’s payload bay to the International Space Station’s (ISS) Harmony node Thursday morning, setting the stage for a carefully choreographed ballet to begin transferring tons of supplies and equipment to and from and the orbiting laboratory (more)

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Discovery’s astronauts surveyed their ship Tuesday for signs of launch damage, but the job was complicated by the failure of the space shuttle’s big dish antenna. (more)

The space shuttle Discovery is on its way to the International Space Station following a successful liftoff early Monday from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center. (more)

A Russian Soyuz space capsule carrying a U.S. astronaut and a Russian cosmonaut from the International Space Station landed safely in Kazakhstan on Thursday. (more)

Fifteen House Republicans are now calling on the Obama administration to appoint a team of NASA experts to study the president’s latest space budget request. (more)

When archaeologists unearth the relics of the American Century, the space race will be our Holy Grail. Space was our New World. In 1962, when John F. Kennedy declared “we choose to go to the moon,” he encouraged every American to look up to the stars and summon the spirit of Columbus staring across the Atlantic. During the Apollo program every American taxpayer became a deckhand on the voyage to the moon. It was a journey that created the world we now live in, spawning GPS systems, plastics, alloy metals, cordless power tools and cancer detecting CAT scans (more)

Buzz Aldrin, 80-year-old veteran of the first moon landing by Apollo 11, is facing a much more down-to-Earth challenge as a contestant on the new season of TV’s “Dancing With the Stars.” (more)

The White House is launching a political counterattack to fend off escalating congressional criticism of its proposals to outsource U.S. manned space missions to private industry. (more)