STUART, Fla. (AP) — Republican presidential contender Newt Gingrich says critics of his call to ramp up U.S. space exploration don’t understand the power of science, technology and entrepreneurship to change the future. (more)
Texas Rep. Ron Paul said Thursday evening during CNN’s Florida primary debate that he didn’t think the government should finance another mission to the moon. (more)
While browsing through the pamphlets at the travel agent, trying to find the perfect vacation, the Bahamas, Disney World, or now even space can seem like a good option for a family getaway. (more)
A white paper published on Thursday laid out the country’s five-year plan for the development on new satellites, spacecraft and a space station and provided the official confirmation of China’s lunar ambitions. (more)
Judging from his tone, Mitt Romney must have been hoping to paint Newt Gingrich as a spendthrift nut when he brought up Gingrich’s past support for a “lunar colony” at Saturday’s GOP debate, but Gingrich hit back with his usual bravado and made an important point: (more)
WASHINGTON (AP) — To soar far away from Earth and even beyond the moon, NASA has dreamed up the world’s most powerful rocket, a behemoth that borrows from the workhorse liquid rockets that sent Apollo missions into space four decades ago. (more)
Critics of NASA aren’t saying “I told you so” yet, but some of them are surely muttering it under their breath. The word from the space agency last week was that the International Space Station (ISS), the American-led, $100-billion skyliner that has been continually occupied by astronauts for more than a decade, may have to be evacuated by early December if the Russian space agency can’t sort out what caused an unmanned Soyuz rocket on a resupply mission to crash into Siberia on Aug. 24, scattering nearly two tons of cargo across a barren stretch near the Mongolian border. Since post-shuttle NASA now relies on Soyuz rockets to carry American astronauts up and down, it may mean everyone out of the pool till the booster malfunction can be analyzed and fixed. (more)
Some members of the Tea Party movement have zeroed in on a multi-billion dollar area of government spending. This time, it isn’t health care or the public debt -– but outer space. (more)
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran launched a satellite into earth orbit Wednesday, Iran’s state TV reported, in a feat that is likely to raise concerns among those who fear Iran’s intentions and nuclear development program. (more)
NASA’s final shuttle mission will feature outer space’s first iPhone, tricked out with an app to measure spacecraft radiation levels, orbital location and altitude. (more)
A Melbourne student has discovered a part of the universe that astrophysicists have spent decades trying to find. (more)
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — Endeavour’s astronauts took care of some last-minute space station chores Saturday before packing up to come home and end the next-to-last shuttle flight. (more)
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — The 12 astronauts circling the Earth received a blessing from Pope Benedict XVI on Saturday in the first ever papal call to space. (more)
Work is quietly underway in the South Bay on a massive 22-story rocket whose power is rivaled in the U.S. only by the mighty Saturn V rocket, which took man to the moon, in a risky private venture that could herald a new era in space flight. (more)
The growing cloud of space junk surrounding the Earth is a hazard to spaceflight, and will only get worse as large pieces of debris collide and fragment. NASA space scientists have hit on a new way to manage the mess: Use mid-powered lasers to nudge space junk off collision courses. (more)
The final mission of the Space Shuttle Discovery concluded Wednesday when the shuttle landed safely on earth, returning from the International Space Station. (more)
NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) (part of NOAA’s National Weather Service, NWS), has issued an alert for an increase in solar activity to moderate levels with a chance for an isolated major solar flare over the next few days. The consequent solar wind, consisting of charged atomic particles, is expected to intersect the upper atmosphere over polar regions February 17-19, leading to the possibility of brilliant auroras. (more)
You know how you sometimes can sense that something is present even though you can’t see it? Well, astronomers are getting that feeling about a giant, hidden object in space. (more)
Space spending has long been the multibillion-dollar government project that is rarely discussed and even more infrequently brought up as a primary focus by fiscal conservatives. (more)
