Picosatellites: Personal space | The Economist

MANY a youngster, Babbage included, has dreamed of going into space. But becoming an astronaut is a hard slog. Sandy Antunes suggests a less daunting proxy. An astrophysicist and programmer with decades of NASA experience, Dr Antunes is a proponent of picosatellites, and has just published the second of four books on “do-it-yourself” satellites. These tiny birds weigh around a kilogram and are shot up in lieu of ballast or in …

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Remembering the Life of Neil Armstrong Through Images

Neil Armstrong’s one small step onto the surface of the moon made the man from Ohio a national hero. Armstrong’s death on Saturday at age 82 had many …

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Obituary: Neil Armstrong | The Economist

ASTRONAUTS do not like to be called heroes. Their standard riposte to such accusations is to point out that …

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Neil Armstrong, First Man on Moon, Dies at 82 – NYTimes.com

Neil Armstrong, who made the “giant leap for mankind” as the first human to set foot on the moon, died on …

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A Shuttle Meets Its City – WSJ.com

The shuttle has landed, and it did so in New York style.

Thousands of gawkers and photographers flocked to the waterfront Friday as the space shuttle Enterprise arrived from Washington, D.C., atop a 747. It was a final voyage for the prototype, which was used in …

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Spaceflight: Thinking big in space | The Economist

AS A small boy Paul Allen, the co-founder of Microsoft, dreamed of going into space. He even tried to launch the hollow aluminium arm of a chair, stuffed with propellant, into orbit. It didn’t work out. But his latest adventure in space travel—a joint venture with Burt Rutan, a famous designer of aircraft—looks more promising. Earlier this month, the two of them said they …

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Another Earth?: Home away from home | The Economist

ONE of the more memorable slogans to come out of the climate-change talks in Durban over the past few days is: “there is no planet B”. But what if there were? Over the past couple of decades astronomers have logged thousands of so-called “exoplanets”—worlds which orbit stars other than the sun. On December 5th the scientists in charge of Kepler, a space telescope designed to look for such planets, confirmed their …

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NASA and Russia Begin New Chapter in Space – NYTimes.com

A Russian Soyuz rocket with three astronauts — two Russians, one American — is set to lift off from Kazakhstan on Monday morning, ferrying the men to the …

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Asteroid to Pass Close to Earth – WSJ.com

Astronomers are tracking an asteroid about the size of an aircraft carrier that on Tuesday will pass by Earth, within the moon’s orbit, in the closest approach of such an object in a …

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NASA Sets Rocket Plan for Deep Space – WSJ.com

NASA unveiled plans Wednesday for a $35 billion rocket program designed to surpass the storied boosters of the Apollo era and eventually be powerful enough to launch astronauts as far as …

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NASA Launches Juno Probe to Jupiter — with Legos – TIME

NASA made history today, launching humanity’s first Lego figurines into space. That’s the word that’s going around the Web, and it’s absolutely true, so let’s get that part out of the way first. At 12:25 p.m. E.T. on Aug. 5, the Juno probe lifted off from Cape Canaveral, headed for a rendezvous with …

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NASA finds new evidence of liquid water on Mars | Reuters

NASA scientists have discovered new evidence that briny water flows on Mars during its warmest months, raising chances that life could exist on the Red Planet, the space agency said on Thursday.

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