David Mars, The 1929 Curtiss Robin, and A Girl Named "Pearl"
David Mars, The 1929 Curtiss Robin, and A Girl Named "Pearl" Or Touching Flying History, With David Mars I was at Tom Rose's Fly-In to raise money for the "Domestic Violence Shelter" and the turn out was small. Approaching from the west was a slow, high-wing aircraft that I first thought was an old Cessna, but as it got closer I realized it was traveling too slow to be a Cessna. As it entered downwind to the south and then turned final to what is more of a driveway than a runway, it looked like something I'd never seen before...
Published on Thursday 17th of May 2012 02:18:12 AM
Astronomy Picture of the Day -- Flowing Barchan Sand Dunes on Mars
Explanation: When does Mars act like a liquid? Although liquids freeze and evaporate quickly into the thin atmosphere of Mars, persistent winds may make large sand dunes appear to flow and even drip like a liquid. Visible on the above image right are two flat top mesas in southern Mars when the season was changing from Spring to Summer. A light dome topped hill is also visible on the far left of the image. As winds blow from right to left, flowing sand on and around the hills leaves picturesque streaks. The dark arc-shaped droplets of fine sand are called...
Published on Thursday 17th of May 2012 02:18:12 AM
Viking robots found life on Mars in 1976, scientists say
New analysis of 36-year-old data, resuscitated from printouts, shows that NASA found life on Mars, an international team of mathematicians and scientists conclude in a paper published this week.
Published on Thursday 17th of May 2012 02:18:12 AM
Astronomy Picture of the Day -- A Dust Devil of Mars
Explanation: It was late in the northern martian spring when the HiRISE camera onboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter spied this local denizen. Tracking south and east (down and right) across the flat, dust-covered Amazonis Planitia the core of the whirling dust devil is about 30 meters in diameter. Lofting dust into the thin martian atmosphere, its plume reaches more than 800 meters above the surface. Not following the path of the dust devil, the plume is blown toward the east by a westerly breeze. Common in this region, dust devils occur as the surface is heated by the Sun, generating...
Published on Thursday 17th of May 2012 02:18:12 AM
12-mile-high Martian dust devil caught in act
A Martian dust devil roughly 12 miles high (20 kilometers) was captured whirling its way along the Amazonis Planitia region of Northern Mars on March 14. It was imaged by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Despite its height, the plume is little more than three-quarters of a football field wide (70 yards, or 70 meters). Dust devils occur on Earth as well as on Mars. They are spinning columns of air, made visible by the dust they pull off the ground. Unlike a tornado, a dust devil typically forms on a clear...
Published on Thursday 17th of May 2012 02:18:12 AM
John Carter Movie Opening Tomorrow Nationwide
Transplanted to Mars, a Civil War Confederate Captain discovers a lush planet inhabited by 12-foot tall barbarians. Finding himself a prisoner of these creatures, he escapes, only to encounter a princess who is in desperate need of a savior.
Published on Thursday 17th of May 2012 02:18:12 AM
John Carter; Disney movie
Just saw a pre-screening of "John Carter", a new Disney movie scheduled to open on March 9. It pretty much followed the Edgar Rice Burroughs Martian books. We saw it in 3D and it was quite good. Action all the way. Pretty sure there will be sequels by the way it ended.
Published on Thursday 17th of May 2012 02:18:12 AM
But What of Our Future?
Here we often discuss history, but what of our future? I wonder this as the shuttle program ends and after reading the The Case for Mars. The exploration of space is adrift, blown about by the shallow whims of politicians only interested in making it to the next election. Will the lessons of history that tell us of the perils of short-sightedness ever impact the feeble minds of Washington?
Published on Thursday 17th of May 2012 02:18:12 AM
US bins (i.e. scraps) joint EU project to visit Mars
The US is scrapping a joint project with the EU to land a robot on Mars due to lack of money. Charles Bolden, the chief of US space agency NASA, announced the move at a press conference in Washington on Monday (13 February) on how his agency plans to spend its 2013 budget. He said: "Tough choices had to be made ... This means we will not be moving forward with the planned 2016 and 2018 ExoMars missions that we had been exploring with the European Space Agency (ESA)." He added the US is not giving up on Mars as...
Published on Thursday 17th of May 2012 02:18:12 AM
Scientists say NASA cutting missions to Mars
WASHINGTON (AP) — Scientists say NASA is about to propose major cuts in its exploration of other planets, especially Mars. And NASA's former science chief is calling it irrational. With limited money for science and an over-budget new space telescope, the space agency essentially had to make a choice in where it wanted to explore: the neighboring planet or the far-off cosmos. Mars lost. Two scientists who were briefed on the 2013 NASA budget that will be released next week said the space agency is eliminating two proposed joint missions with Europeans to explore Mars in 2016 and 2018. NASA...
Published on Thursday 17th of May 2012 02:18:12 AM
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