If approved, Obama will sever NASA’s partnership with European Space Agency to send probes to Mars.

The budget coming Monday from the Obama administration will send the NASA division that launches rovers to Mars and probes to Jupiter crashing back to Earth.

Scientists briefed on the proposed budget said that the president’s plan drops funding for planetary science at NASA from $1.5 billion this year to $1.2 billion next year, with further cuts continuing through 2017.

It would eat at NASA’s Mars exploration program, which, after two high-profile failures in 1999, has successfully sent three probes into Martian orbit and landed three more on the planet’s surface.

“We’re doing all this great science and taking the public along with us,” said Jim Bell, an Arizona State University scientist and president of the Planetary Society who works on NASA’s Mars roverOpportunity. “Pulling the rug out from under it is going to be really devastating.”

CONTINUED at The Washington Post.

A team of rock hounds is in chilly pursuit of meteorites, scouring their snowy surroundings as part of the 2010-11 field season of theAntarctic Search for Meteorites (ANSMET) program.

In a recent blog post fromAntarctica’s LaPaz ice sheet, members of the search team reported the hunting is good.

“We’ve been camping on the icehere for two weeks and they have gone by fast,” wrote Melissa Lane of the Planetary Science Institute, which is based in Tucson, Ariz. “In all, we found 170 meteorites here and the most interesting one,petrologically, seems to be the last one found!”

Lane is a planetary geologist on the Reconnaissance Team, which also includes John Schutt, an ANSMET veteran of 30 years serving as the science lead and safety officer, Serena Aunon, astronaut and physician from NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, and geologist StephenBallou of Beloit College in Wisconsin.

“We’ve all grown accustomed to the stark beauty here,” Lane wrote. “The flatness, the wind, the snow, and even (sort of) the cold are all special here. The team is going to miss this place, but we are excited for new scenery, too. We are moving our camp to the Patuxent Range that is over 100 miles to our NE. We’ll describe it once we see it.”

Better suited for Houdini

The Recon Team arrived at the LaPaz ice sheet Dec. 16, delivered along with its tents, sleeping gear and cooking stoves aboard a Twin Otter aircraft. Two other aircraft delivered snowmobiles the next day, allowing the eager scientists to begin their first meteorite hunt.

“The beauty of the area and sheer fun of navigating our snow machines over endless frozen oceanwaves? was a thrill for all,” said Ballou. “Spirits are high and we are all thrilled to be here, but every facet of our lives here is work. It is challenging to do normal everyday things like dress, eat — and just leaving the tent is often an act better suited for Houdini.”

The Reconnaissance Team is gearing up for 25 more days of camping in Antarctica, coupled with the change of scenery in the Patuxent Range, ”where we can continue our new passions ofmeteorite hunters and huntresses extraordinaire,” Ballou noted.

NASA’s Aunon described in a recent blog what the team faces.

“Winds, winds…and more winds,” Aunon wrote. “In Antarctica the winds are relentless and forced the Recon Team to spend yesterday and this morning inside the tent.

“We did manage to get out in the afternoon, however, and found an additional four meteorites in the field.”

Aunon said preparing to go out on the ice takes the better part of an hour. Team members put on multiple layers of thermal clothing, apply sunscreen, gather equipment and warm up the snowmobiles.

“The Ski-Doos are our best friend out in the field as they carry a survival kit for four people, meteorite gathering equipment, multiple liters of water, food, medical kits, iridium phones and GPSdevices,” Aunon said. “We take extra care in the mornings examining the Ski-Doo engines to ensure peak performance.”

Collection process

ANSMET field work has been supported since 1976 by grants from the Office of Polar Programs of the National Science Foundation and NASA’s Planetary Science Division.

Meteorites have been found in Antarctica since the continent was first explored. The first one was found in 1912, by a member of an expedition from Australia.

So what happens when a team member spots a meteorite?

The collection process starts by using the meteorite hunter’s toolkit, a relatively simple collection of gear: sterile bags to contain the rocks, numbered tags to label them, tape to close and seal the bags, a notebook to take down any distinguishing features of the sample, and scissors to cut the tape or the bags open.

Great care is taken not to touch the meteorite or even breathe on it. Above all, a dripping nose hovering over a specimen is a no-no!

The meteorite is placed in a sterile bag as quickly as possible, usually by putting the bag over it. The meteorite is measured and sometimes photographed, and its size and color and possible classification are noted.

A small aluminum tag with an ID number is also inserted into the bag, and the whole thing is then sealed up tight.

At the end of a good day, a hunter’s backpack can be full of these meteorite samples.

Collected meteorites are shipped still frozen to the Antarctic Meteorite Curation labs at Johnson Space Center. There the samples are carefully dried and cracked open, and small pieces are broken off for study as thin sections.

A day of rest

With the team ready to be transported to its new location, it was informed by briefers at South Pole Station Dec. 29 that weather over the Patuxent Range was not good and that the Twin Otters would be unable to fly out.

“Could it be true? A day off? As much as we would like to continue the search for meteorites, a day of rest was welcome,” Aunon said. “We were able to catch up on phone calls with family and friends, write postcards, wash our hair (very refreshing but time consuming), write in our journals and enjoy a matinee showing of ‘Nacho Libre‘ with the team.”

Now well rested, the Recon Team is primed to continue its meteorite adventure at the PatuxentRange.

“In all, this will require four flights to transfer tents, food, Ski-Doos, fuel, and people. If we?re luckywe?ll have two Twin Otters at our disposal and get everything transferred in one day. We?ll keep you updated,” Aunon said, signing off.

If you’d like to keep tabs on the intrepid explorers and their Antarctic field work, check their blogs by going to: http://humanedgetech.com/expedition/ansmet1011/

Source: Space.

The £210 million deep sea observatory will detect elusive particles known as neutrinos as they bombard the Earth from outer space.

Usually these high-energy particles pass straight through our planet unnoticed, but scientists hope that the new telescope will allow them to pick up traces the particles leave and use them to view the universe in an entirely new way.

The EU funded project, which has just been selected as a key priority in a review of European astrophysics infrastructure, promises to reveal new details about some of the most powerful events in our universe, including supernova and even the Big Bang.

The telescope, known as the Multi-Cubic Kilometre Neutrino Telescope or KM3NeT, is also expected to reveal entirely new phenomena that still remain undiscovered as they are undetectable using conventional methods for viewing the sky.

“It is really going to open a new window on our universe,” said Dr Lee Thompson, a reader in neutrino physics at the University of Sheffield who is working on the KM3NeT project.

“Much of what we know about the universe to date has been gleaned from looking at different frequencies within the electromagnetic spectrum such as visible light and X-rays.

“Using neutrinos to probe the universe is a completely new and fresh idea, so it is going to give us an entirely new perspective. …

“There are objects out there that we know are emitting neutrinos but there could be things out there that cannot be seen with the telescopes we currently use.”

A small prototype of the KM3NeT telescope is already operational off the south coast of France and it is hoped work on a larger prototype will begin within the next three years.

Source: Telegraph.

Computer hackers plan to take the internet beyond the reach of censors by putting their own communication satellites into orbit.The scheme was outlined at the Chaos Communication Congress in Berlin.The project’s organisers said the Hackerspace Global Grid will also involve developing a grid of ground stations to track and communicate with the satellites.

Longer term they hope to help put an amateur astronaut on the moon.

Hobbyists have already put a few small satellites into orbit – usually only for brief periods of time – but tracking the devices has proved difficult for low-budget projects. The hacker activist Nick Farr first put out calls for people to contribute to the project in August. He said that the increasing threat of internet censorship had motivated the project.

“The first goal is an uncensorable internet in space. Let’s take the internet out of the control of terrestrial entities,” Mr Farr said.Beyond balloonsHe cited the proposed Stop Online Piracy Act Sopa in the United States as an example of the kind of threat facing online freedom. If passed, the act would allow for some sites to be blocked on copyright grounds.Whereas past space missions have almost all been the preserve of national agencies and large companies, amateur enthusiasts have in recent years sent a few payloads into orbit.These devices have mostly been sent up using balloons and are tricky to pinpoint precisely from the ground.According to Armin Bauer, a 26-year-old enthusiast from Stuttgart who is working on the Hackerspace Global Grid, this is largely due to lack of funding.

“Professionals can track satellites from ground stations, but usually they don’t have to because, if you pay a large sum [to send the satellite up on a rocket], they put it in an exact place,” Mr Bauer said.

In the long run, a wider hacker aerospace project aims to put an amateur astronaut onto the moon within the next 23 years.”It is very ambitious so we said let’s try something smaller first,” Mr Bauer added.

CONTINUED at BBC.

Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen and aerospace pioneer Burt Rutan announced Tuesday they’re building a giant airplane and spaceship to zip people and cargo into orbit.

But unlike traditional rockets and government spaceships, this new commercial spaceship will drop from a high-flying airplane instead of blasting off from a launch pad.

“When I was growing up, America’s space program was the symbol of aspiration,” Allen said at a news conference. “For me, the fascination with space never ended. I never stopped dreaming what might be possible.”

Allen bemoaned the fact that government-sponsored spaceflight is waning and said his new project would “keep America at the forefront of space exploration” and give a new generation of children something to dream about.

“We have plenty and many challenges ahead of us,” he said.

Allen and Rutan join a field crowded with Silicon Valley veterans who grew up on “Star Trek” and now want to fill a void created with the retirement of NASA’s space shuttle. Several companies are competing to develop spacecraft to deliver cargo and astronauts to the International Space Station.

CONTINUED at CBS Seattle.

*Taken from Breitbart.

British billionaire Richard Branson opened the world’s first-ever commercial spaceport in the New Mexico desert, the new home for his company, Virgin Galactic.

The eccentric businessman, with usual flair, sported a black jacket and waves of hair flying as he inaugurated the building by breaking a champagne bottleagainst a hanger building, while rappelling down the side of it.

“Spaceport America,” as the site is called, will serve “as the operating hub for Virgin Galactic and is expected to house up to two WhiteKnightTwos and five SpaceShipTwos, in addition to all of Virgin?s astronaut preparation facilities and mission control,” said the company in a statement to the press.

CONTINUED..

*Taken from the Daily Mail.

Phase one of the world’s first commercial spaceport, which will be the hub for Virgin’s consumer spaceflights, is now 90 per cent complete.

The 1,800-acre Spaceport America site, in Las Cruces, New Mexico, is the home base for Virgin Galactic, Richard Branson’s most ambitious business venture yet.

It already boasts a runway stretching to nearly two miles long, a futuristic styled terminal hanger, and a dome-shaped Space Operations Centre.

CONTINUED..

Paul Krugman wants to create a Keynesian-infused Space Alien Economic Bubble to revive the depressed one we have right now.

*Taken from Space.

UPDATE for 5:35 p.m. ET: NASA has recalculated the time of closest approach for this event to be about 3 1/2 hours later than initially reported. The change is reflected below.

Here’s something to dwell on as you head to work on Monday morning: A small asteroid the size of a tour bus will make an extremely close pass by the Earth at about that time, but it poses no threat to the planet.

The asteroid will make its closest approach at 1:14 p.m. EDT (1714 GMT) on June 27 and will pass just over 7,500 miles (12,000 kilometers) above the Earth’s surface, NASA officials say. At that particular moment, the asteroid — which scientists have named 2011 MD — will be sailing high off the coast of Antarctica, almost 2,000 miles (3,218 km) south-southwest of South Africa.

CONTINUED..