China hails spacewalk 'heroes' and sets eyes on moon

"We still do not have an exact timetable for a manned mission to the moon, but I believe a Chinese (astronaut) will set foot on the moon in the not too distant future," an unnamed official told the Communist Party mouthpiece.

It followed remarks Sunday by Wang Zhaoyao, spokesman for the manned space programme, who said it was "necessary" for China to put a man on the moon.

"We believe that as long as we can make further progress in science and technology, we can achieve the dream of a manned space flight to the moon in the near future," he told reporters.

Someone at a coffeeshop mentioned this to me because he thought I might be interested. My reputation proceeds me.

NASA Looks at Fission Reactors for Power on the Moon

"Our goal is to build a technology demonstration unit with all the major components of a fission surface power system and conduct non-nuclear, integrated system testing in a ground-based space simulation facility," said Mason. "Our long-term goal is to demonstrate technical readiness early in the next decade, when NASA is expected to decide on the type of power system to be used on the lunar surface."

Griffin: China Could Beat US in Moon Race

More bad news for NASA: even their administrator thinks China could beat the US to the Moon. Speaking with the BBC today, Michael Griffin shared his views about the Chinese space aspirations, pointing out that the super-state could, if they wanted to, send a manned mission to the lunar surface within a decade.

Moon Water Found, Raises Questions About Origin Theory

Water found in moon matter counters the long-held belief that Earth's satellite is bone dry, researchers announced today.

Geologists used new technology to coax water molecules from volcanic glasses brought back decades ago by two Apollo missions.

The researchers believe the water was ejected along with magma when "fire fountains" erupted more than three billion years ago from the moon's surface.

Company offers moon as final resting place

The moon could become a final resting place for some of mankind thanks to a commercial service that hopes to send human ashes to the lunar surface on robotic landers, the company said on Thursday.

Celestis, Inc., a company that pioneered the sending of cremated remains into suborbital space on rockets, said it would start a service to the surface of the moon that could begin as early as next year.

(Via Nerdshit.)

Sometimes I agree with Stephen Hawking and sometimes I don't.

A Visual History of NASA's Project Constellation

Project Constellation is NASA's spacecraft system which replaces the space shuttle, with flights beginning in 2015 with the Orion capsule and Ares I rocket. This site is a visual record of the concept and design phases.

Awesome stuff, but be warned: the image files are exceptionally massive.

Plans for a "Doomsday Ark" on the Moon are in the Works

Having a backup of your computer is handy, but having a backup of the entire progress of human civilization is even more practical. If a major catastrophic event like nuclear war or an asteroid strike wipes out most of the humans on the planet, it would be helpful for the survivors to have a record of all the accomplishments we've made in the past few thousands of years to help rebuild and repopulate the Earth.

The closest off-world place to store such a structure and ensure its safety would be the Moon. The construction of such a "doomsday ark" was presented last month by William Burrough and Jim Burke at a symposium on "Space Solutions to Earth's Global Challenges" at the International Space University in Strasbourg, France.

Japan marvels at its Moon movies

The very latest footage was unveiled at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in Houston, Texas.

It includes amazing pictures of "Earth rise" over the lunar horizon and of the "terminator", the boundary between the Moon's day side and night side.

"It is quite a spectacular view," said Dr Rie Honda, from Japan's Kochi University, a collaborator on the Selene mission.

Take a few moments to soak up the jaw-dropping, vertiginous beauty of Earth rising above the lunar surface. All that's missing is a Vangelis soundtrack.

Artwork on the lunar surface?

NASA Takes Aim at Moon with Double Sledgehammer

Scientists are priming two spacecraft to slam into the moon's South Pole to see if the lunar double whammy reveals hidden water ice.

I call this technique "roswelling."

Britain may send astronauts to the Moon, Mars and beyond

Britain could send astronauts into space, the Government said yesterday.

For decades the UK has focused on unmanned missions and developing robotic technology.

But Science Minister Ian Pearson said the world was "on the cusp of a wave of new space exploration" and Britain had to take full advantage.

"What we want to do is review the situation to make sure the UK does not get left behind," he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

(Hat tip to the indefatigable Nick Redfern.)

10 Sci-Fi Techs We Could Build If They Weren't So Damn Expensive

Includes floating cities and android armies!

NASA Rolls Out Lunar Hot Rod

People aren't quite sure what to make of the bright-white vehicle with gold rims and gold trim that is a cross between an off-road vehicle and someone's fantasy hot rod.

This vehicle is dubbed the Chariot by the design team at the Johnson Space Center. This team was given one year to design and build this ultimate concept lunar rover.

Needs more "bling."

NASA Chooses "Altair" as Name for Astronauts' Lunar Lander

Altair will be capable of landing four astronauts on the moon, providing life support and a base for weeklong initial surface exploration missions, and returning the crew to the Orion spacecraft that will bring them home to Earth. Altair will launch aboard an Ares V rocket into low Earth orbit, where it will rendezvous with the Orion crew vehicle.

Virtual Worlds To Keep Martian Astronauts Sane?

While NASA has dedicated hundreds (if not thousands) of scientists and engineers to ensure that the future humans traveling to Mars make it back to Earth in one piece, they have paid a lot less attention to the fact of them getting homesick.

In order to help lift their spirits (and perhaps counter cabin fever) NASA is considering building a "Second Life" virtual world that would enable them to communicate with friends and family.

Suppose you're sending a "generation ark" to a remote star system. Why even bother letting the crew know? Surely they'd opt for VR decadence instead of the grinding boredom of workaday ship-board life.

For illustrative purposes, here's a brief excerpt from a story I began in 2003:

Inside, the crew stirred within their communal environmental VR, roused by an unspecific sense of incipience. Zack felt it in the air, a certain heaviness that descended over the spires and narrow, cobbled avenues. The hairs on the back of his neck prickled as he stood in front of the noisy café. As he watched, the faces of onlookers morphed into pixilated anonymity. He experienced a rush of strange nostalgia as the sky over Prague grew metallic, strewn with listing spheres and half-glimpsed workstation icons. His muscles tightened and the noise of conversation and scuttling cars blurred into the sound of electronic surf, pounding endlessly against the shores of his consciousness.

A blare of synthesized instruments. Prague had redshifted to a niggling afterimage, and he was alone in a strange green room that smelled of discreetly rotting vegetation. A barbed device, looking something like a spider as conceived by an aspiring surrealist, detached itself from his scalp, leaving a constellation of reddened impressions.

A voice: familiar, unwanted: "Welcome home, Zack."

He sagged into a mattress of gengineered lichen that buoyed his limbs and spine as if offering him up for sacrifice. His ears buzzed. He could still taste coffee. The spider-interface dangled above his head, twinkling mockingly in the glow of the room's diagnostic screens.

"Lights," he heard himself say. "Turn on the damned lights."

The room erupted in yellow light, emitted from organelles embedded in the walls and ceiling. The room was alive; in fact, it appeared to have grown more verdant in his long sensory absence. He breathed a quiet sigh of relief. There had been fear of native biota wrecking the Isis' genetic architecture, leaving the ship an undifferentiated blob of metal and biomass hovering between stars.

Elsewhere, he knew -- or, more accurately, sensed -- his crewmates awakening in dimly glowing rooms of their own. The metal spider curled its limbs into a somehow dangerous-looking sphere and drifted on a tether of fiber-optic cable. For the first time, he noticed the microgravity; the only thing keeping him from ascending was the mattress' faintly adhesive embrace. He freed his arms and watched his thin, colorless hands with the studied patience of a forensic scientist happening across some vital and mysterious piece of evidence.

He hadn't used his body in . . . 203 years, ship time? Unless something had gone wrong . . . But the voice had said "welcome home," hadn't it? A chill raced down his spine as he considered the possibility of software corruption. Two centuries of exposure to interstellar space could have plunged the AI into a lethally premature senility.

Russia to launch space base for missions to Moon, Mars after 2020

"After 2020, Russia plans to create and put into orbit a near-Earth experimental manned complex to ensure transport operations to the Moon and Mars," Anatoly Perminov said.

He also said Russia has tentative plans for manned missions to Mars, but since substantial technical and financial resources would be needed, a Mars expedition should be international.

The agency chief had said previously that Russia planned to send cosmonauts to the Moon by 2025 and establish a permanently-manned base there in 2027-2032.

(Via Futurismic.)

Moon photo mystery solved

Some dogged sleuthing by a fellow space blogger has tracked down the truth behind the controversial first photo from China's moon orbiter.

In the week since the picture was released amid much fanfare in Beijing, there have been widespread rumors that the photo was a fake, copied from an old picture collected by a U.S. space probe.

The good news for the Chinese is that Planetary Society blogger Emily Lakdawalla's clears them of outright fakery. The bad news is, she found evidence that the photo was badly retouched for public release.

(Via The Anomalist.)

"Spacecraft images badly retouched for public release"? I think this certainly qualifies.

Image Taking of Earth-Rise by HDTV

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corporation) have successfully performed the world's first high-definition image taking of an Earth-rise* by the lunar explorer "KAGUYA" (SELENE,) which was injected into a lunar orbit at an altitude of about 100 km on October 18, 2007 (Japan Standard Time. Following times and dates are all JST.)

"Stunning" doesn't begin to do these images justice.

Moon in HDTV

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and public broadcaster NHK have succeeded in capturing the world’s first high-definition video of the moon taken from lunar orbit. The 8x time-lapse video was shot using an HDTV camera aboard the KAGUYA lunar explorer, a.k.a. SELENE (SELenological and ENgineering Explorer), while in orbit 100 kilometers (62 miles) above the lunar surface.

Worth a look!