Space Tourism … and Much More
Video Caption: A 1967 United Nations treaty states that outer space isn’t up for grabs.This hasn’t stopped at least one entrepreneur from selling land on our closest celestial neighbors. Scientific American editor Clara Moskowitz explains.
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(Credits: NASA/JPL/NEAR and Galileo missions)
WASHINGTON (NASA PR) — NASA and Planetary Resources Inc., of Bellevue, Wash., are partnering to develop crowd-sourced software solutions to enhance detection of near-Earth objects using agency-funded data. The agreement is NASA’s first partnership associated with the agency’s Asteroid Grand Challenge.
Under a non-reimbursable Space Act Agreement, Planetary Resources will facilitate the use of NASA-funded sky survey data and help support the algorithm competition and review results. NASA will develop and manage the contests and explore use of the best solutions for enhancing existing survey programs. The first contest is expected to launch early in 2014 based on Planetary Resources’ and Zooniverse’s Asteroid Zoo platform currently in development. The partnership was announced Thursday at NASA’s Asteroid Initiative Ideas Synthesis Workshop in Houston.
Continue reading ‘NASA, Planetary Resources Sign Agreement to Crowdsource Asteroid Detection’
STONY BROOK, NY (SUNY Stony Brook PR) – Stony Brook is headed to outer space—virtually. The University has been selected as the lead institution for one of NASA’s nine new Solar System Exploration Research Virtual Institute (SSERVI) teams that will bring researchers together in a virtual setting to focus on space science and human space exploration.
The Stony Brook project, “Remote, In Situ and Synchrotron Studies for Science and Exploration” (RIS4E), led by Timothy Glotch, associate professor in the Department of Geosciences at Stony Brook, is composed of 13 institutions in the US, Canada, and the United Kingdom, and will tackle scientific questions about the Moon, near-earth asteroids, and the Martian moons Phobos and Deimos.
Continue reading ‘SUNY Stony Brook Joins NASA’s SSERVI Team’
HOUSTON (USRA PR) — The Universities Space Research Association (USRA) is proud to announce NASA’s recent selection of scientists from USRA’s Lunar and Planetary Institute (LPI), the Johnson Space Center (JSC), Arecibo Observatory, and colleagues at six universities to be one of the nine initial teams in NASA’s Solar System Exploration Research Virtual Institute (SSERVI). SSERVI is a new organization that expands the scope of the NASA Lunar Science Institute to one that includes near-Earth asteroids and the moons of Mars.
The LPI/JSC team is led by Dr. David A. Kring, Senior Staff Scientist at the LPI and the founding Principal Investigator of the Center for Lunar Science and Exploration. Under the auspices of SSERVI, the team will continue to integrate science and exploration activities in a coordinated study of the Moon and the asteroids that bombard the Earth-Moon system. Those studies will include observations of existing near-Earth asteroids, studies of past collisional events in the Earth-Moon system, and the collisional evolution of the asteroid belt that delivers those objects to near-Earth space.
Continue reading ‘Lunar and Planetary Institute Joins NASA’s New Virtual Institute’
LAUREL, Mary. (APL PR) — NASA has tapped the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md., to look into the processes that shape the surfaces of the moon and asteroids — and provide insight into potential robotic and human exploration of these surfaces and the resources they might harbor.
As part of NASA’s new Solar System Exploration Research Virtual Institute, APL space scientist Benjamin Bussey will head the Volatiles, Regolith and Thermal Investigations Consortium for Exploration and Science (VORTICES) team. VORTICES includes more than 40 co-investigators and collaborators from the U.S. and abroad, including the Homewood campus of the Johns Hopkins University. By combining the talents and facilities of different researchers at multiple institutions, the VORTICES team will tackle problems of interest to NASA’s science and human operations mission directorates.
Continue reading ‘JHU APL to Study Moon, Asteroids as Part of New NASA Virtual Institute’
PROVIDENCE, R.I. (Brown University PR]) — NASA has tapped a team of Brown and MIT researchers to be part of its new Solar System Exploration Research Virtual Institute (SSERVI). The team will help to develop scientific goals and exploration strategies for the Moon, near-Earth asteroids, and the Martian moons Phobos and Deimos.
“These are the most accessible solar system targets for robotic and human exploration beyond Earth,” said Carle Pieters, professor of geological sciences and principal investigator for the Brown/MIT team. “They are diverse bodies that together may hold the key to understanding the formation and evolution of our solar system.”
Continue reading ‘Brown/MIT Team Chosen for New NASA Virtual Institute’
BOULDER, Colo. (SwRI PR) — NASA has selected a team led by Southwest Research Institute to be a founding member of the agency’s new Solar System Exploration Research Virtual Institute (SSERVI).
The recently formed team, known as the Institute for the Science of Exploration Targets, or ISET, will help build fundamental knowledge of the worlds directly accessible by astronauts in the future — such as the Moon, near-Earth asteroids and the satellites of Mars — by researching their origin, evolution and physical properties, as well as what their relatively pristine records tell us about the history of the Solar System.
Continue reading ‘SwRI Team Part of NASA’s New Solar System Exploration Virtual Institute’
ORLANDO, Fla. (UCF PR) – UCF will be home to NASA’s Center for Lunar and Asteroid Surface Science (referred to as CLASS) beginning later this year, thanks to a $6 million grant awarded this week to UCF physics professor Daniel Britt.
The research center puts UCF on the agency’s space-exploration map. CLASS will provide critical research in areas NASA has identified as key to future robotic and human space-exploration missions. The CLASS was one of nine organizations selected under NASA’s Solar System Exploration Research Virtual Institute program, which NASA announced Wednesday.
Continue reading ‘UCF to Host NASA Center for Lunar and Asteroid Surface Science’
NASA has selected nine research teams from seven states for a new institute that will bring researchers together in a collaborative virtual setting to focus on questions concerning space science and human space exploration.
The teams participating in the Solar System Exploration Research Virtual Institute (SSERVI) will address scientific questions about the moon, near-Earth asteroids, the Martian moons Phobos and Deimos, and their near space environments, in cooperation with international partners.
Continue reading ‘NASA Creates New Virtual Solar System Exploration Institute’
The United Nations is developing a plan to keep hazardous asteroids from hitting Earth. Meanwhile, the Association of Space Explorers has urged that the UN and national governments take more actions to address this threat.
New York, New York (ASE PR) – At an Oct. 25 public event at New York’s American Museum of Natural History, the Association of Space Explorers (ASE), a professional society of astronauts and cosmonauts, issued a challenge to the global community to take the next vital steps to confront the threat from dangerous asteroids. The ASE Committee on Near-Earth Objects statement follows the United Nations General Assembly adoption of a suite of proposals to create an international decision-making mechanism for planetary asteroid defense.
Continue reading ‘UN Develops Plan for Dangerous Asteroids as Astronaut Group Urges More Action’
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