Blog Archive

NASA and NOAA Hit Again by Across-the-Board Budget Cuts

Posted by Charlene Anderson on 2011/12/16 05:18 CST

The U.S. House of Representatives has passed appropriations bills that will provide $8.1 billion disaster aid for this year's "extreme weather events" -- tornadoes, hurricanes, floods, heat waves, and droughts. The aid will be funded by a proposed 1.83% across-the-board cut to all FY 2012 base discretionary spending, including NASA and NOAA.

MalloMars Rover: Search for S'more Data

Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2011/12/16 04:55 CST

Abigail Fraeman took third place in the Washington Post's 2011 Style Invitational edible-art contest with her entry, "MalloMars Rover: Search for S'more Data".

NASA Changes Approach to Send Astronauts Back to Orbit

Posted by Charlene Anderson on 2011/12/16 12:20 CST

NASA had planned to release next Monday an RFP (Request for Proposals) in its Commercial Crew Development (CCDev) program. However, due to a funding shortfall, the agency will instead continue to use Space Act Agreements to contract for the development.

Space Shuttle Endeavour docked to Harmony module on the ISS

Expedition 30, SpaceX and Stratolaunch

Posted by Jason Davis on 2011/12/16 10:25 CST

An update on upcoming missions to the International Space Station (ISS).

What do we know about planetary rings? Quite a lot, actually!

Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2011/12/15 11:18 CST

A summary of a new article by Matt Tiscareno about planetary ring systems that reviews the known ring systems of the four giant planets and the prospects for ring systems yet to be discovered.