The first space race was a competition between the U.S. and the Soviet Union for national pride and military advantage. Now NASA is farming out missions to private companies, and other countries have joined the race — notably China and India. The moon and Mars remain tantalizing goals for many nations, as are the technological advances that space exploration can drive.
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Since the space shuttle program ended in 2011, NASA, as the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration is better known, had relied on Russia to ferry U.S. astronauts to the International Space Station, which has orbited Earth for two decades. That changed in 2020 when billionaire Elon Musk's company, Space Exploration Technologies Corp., or SpaceX, flew its first crewed missions, powered by reusable boosters that dramatically cut launch costs. Boeing Co.
Were you following this:
NASA's Plutonium Tours U.S. Before Heading To Mars
The plutonium-238 that powers NASA's rovers on Mars crisscrosses the United States first on a tour of national laboratories.
NASA uses a solid-state nuclear battery, called a Multi-Mission Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator, instead of, say, solar arrays, so the rover can keep operating during dust storms and the Martian night. With a halflife of 90 years, Pu-238 can keep a craft powered for decades.
"What's the secret to their longevity?" Dozier asks. "It's not turmeric, or acai berries, or wheat germ—the Mars rovers, and dozens of other NASA missions, run on a diet of pure plutonium-238."
Cyprus rocky testing ground for Mars - Science & Tech - The Jakarta Post
This file handout picture released on October 16, 2016 by the European Space Agency (ESA) shows planet Mars as seen by the webcam on ESA's Mars Express orbiter, as another mission, ExoMars, is about to reach the Red Planet. (European Space Agency/AFP/File)
International and Cypriot experts on Friday discussed a research project to test space equipment on the Mediterranean island before sending it to Mars to measure the age of its rocks, officials said.
Laboratory experiments unravelling the mystery of the Mars moon Phobos | EurekAlert! Science News
Of course, there is no weather in our sense of the word in space - nevertheless, soil can also "weather" in the vacuum of space if it is constantly bombarded by high-energy particles, such as those emitted by the sun. The Martian moon Phobos is affected by a special situation: it is so close to Mars that not only the solar wind but also the irradiation by particles from Mars plays a decisive role there. A research team from TU Wien has now been able to measure this in laboratory experiments.
Quite a lot has been going on:
ExoMy: 3D Print, Assemble, and Program Your Own Mars Rover
Europe’s Rosalind Franklin ExoMars rover has a younger ’sibling’ – ExoMy. The blueprints and software for this mini-version of the full-size Mars explorer are available for free so that anyone can 3D print, assemble and program their own ExoMy. Credit: ExoMy
The six-wheeled ExoMy rover was designed by ESA’s Planetary Robotics Laboratory, which specializes in developing locomotion platforms and navigation systems to support ESA’s planetary exploration missions.
Why is Mars 'the red planet?'
Mars Is Getting a New Robotic Meteorologist – NASA's Mars Exploration Program
NASA's Mars 2020 Rover Artist's Concept : SkyCam is a sky-facing camera aboard NASA's Perseverance Mars rover. As part of MEDA, the rover's set of weather instruments, SkyCam will take images and video of clouds passing in the Martian sky. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech. Full image and caption ›
Sensors on NASA's Perseverance will help prepare for future human exploration by taking weather measurements and studying dust particles.
Farming on Mars will be a lot harder than 'The Martian' made it seem - The Washington Post
In the film "The Martian," astronaut Mark Watney (Matt Damon) survives being stranded on the Red Planet by farming potatoes in Martian dirt fertilized with feces.
Future Mars astronauts could grow crops in dirt to avoid solely relying on resupply missions, and to grow a greater amount and variety of food than with hydroponics alone. But new lab experiments suggest that growing food on Mars will be a lot more complicated than simply planting crops with human manure .
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