The Georgian Institute of Experimental Pathology and Therapy is in talks with Russia's Cosmonautics Academy about starting a program to train monkeys for an eventual journey to Mars. The Institute supplied monkeys to the Russian space program in the 1980s, when Russia began sending monkeys into orbit. Now Russia is considering sending monkeys to Mars before putting human cosmonauts at risk. Because a round-trip voyage to Mars would take an estimated 520 days and would subject cosmonauts to high levels of radiation, there are concerns about sending humans on the initial trip. Instead, we may get to see how other primates fare first.

If Russia does decide to begin a Martian monkey program, a biosphere would be constructed at the Institute to allow for simulated missions. While on these faux missions, the monkeys would interact with a robot instead of their human handlers. The Institute is looking to train the monkeys to cooperate with such robots, which would feed and clean up after the monkeys.

Monkey to be sent to Mars [Telegraph]

The "Fifty Years of Exploration" map, created by Sean McNaughton and Samuel Velasco for National Geographic, outlines humanity's journeys into space, starting from the early failed mission to Mars and Venus to the current flight of New Horizons. A complete, but scaled-down version of the map is shown below, but you can see the giant, full-sized map here.

Fifty Years of Exploration [National Geographic via Stevey via Metafilter]

From 1961 to 1985, the Soviet Union launched 17 missions to our other planetary neighbor. The US has since mapped Venus' surface by radar and deliberately vaporized the Magellan probe in the planet's atmosphere, but the last probes to land on Venus were Vega 1 and Vega 2, sent by the Soviet Union in 1985.

Now Russia is looking to go back to Venus, with the help of the European Space Agency. The Venera D mission would be a thorough, multi-faceted exploration of Venus, with an orbiting spacecraft, air balloons, a lander, and a kite-like "wind flyer," which would harness the winds of Venus to stay indefinitely aloft over the surface. It will not only be an expensive undertaking, but a great engineering challenge to develop crafts that can survive Venus' high temperatures and harsh conditions. Soviet landers lasted mere hours on the surface; Russian scientists working on Venera D had hoped to develop spacecraft and instruments that could last an entire 30 days, though they now think 24 hours is a more sensible goal.

Even a single day on Venus will prove difficult, but Russia is consulting with other space programs also turning toward Venus, and are officially scheduled to launch Venera D in 2016.

Russia plots return to Venus [BBC]

Using the traditional fuel-burning rockets that carried humans on lunar missions, it would take a manned spacecraft six months to travel from the Earth to Mars. While you could find volunteers in spades willing to trade a year in a tin can for a glimpse of another planet, osteoporosis-inducing weightlessness and dangerous radiation render a lengthy trip unfeasible. But attention has turned to ion engines. While a combustion rocket thrusts a space shuttle through the atmosphere, then lets it coast to its destination, ion engines are able to effect a more continuous thrust:

Ion engines, on the other hand, accelerate electrically charged atoms, or ions, through an electric field, thereby pushing the spacecraft in the opposite direction. They provide much less thrust at a given moment than do chemical rockets, which means they can't break free of the Earth's gravity on their own.

But once in space, they can give a continuous push for years, like a steady breeze at the back of a sailboat, accelerating gradually until they're moving faster than chemical rockets.

Engineers at the Ad Astra are seeing promise in VASIMR, an ion engine that uses a radio frequency generator to heat charged particles and create greater thrust than other similar engines. Ad Astra plans to attach a solar-powered VASIMR engine to the International Space Station for tests, and, if they are successful, could use VASIMR periodically to thrust the ISS back into the Earth's orbit.

But, if the engine were powered by an onboard nuclear reactor, its applications could be much more profound. Using 1000 times the energy of a solar-powered VASIMR, a nuclear-powered VASIMR engine could propel a manned spacecraft to Mars in a mere 39 days. Although the technology to play a nuclear reactor on a space shuttle is still a ways off, many in astrophysics feel the project holds enormous promise. NASA has provided Ad Astra with a small stipend for VASIMR development, and NASA chief Charles Bolden had high praise for the possibility of shortened space travel:

If engines, such as VASIMR, could be developed to take people to the Red Planet in 40 days, "that puts it inside the range of what we feel comfortable of doing with humans," he told New Scientist. "Something like VASIMR – that's a game changer."

Ion engine could one day power 39-day trips to Mars [New Scientist via Futurismic]

The discussion took place during the National Aviation Hall of Fame Spirit of Flight Award. Neil Armstrong talked generally about the benefits of setting large future goals, but Buzz Aldrin specifically said that humans should aim next to land on Mars.

It's interesting that NASA hasn't had a clearly defined goal like the Moon landing since that goal came to fruition. The Moon landing forced NASA to quickly develop highly experimental technologies. A similar push to Mars, at least according to Neil Armstrong, would spur additional new technologies and jump-start the future.

So no matter what NASA actually intends to do, it's clear that the men who actually journeyed to the Moon are tired of all this Moon talk. They are taking their official Mars pitch to the president today.

Apollo 11 astronauts look beyond moon, toward Mars [via Physorg]

Finazzi and his colleagues propose creating this bubble of space-time by using a massive amount of "exotic matter," or dark energy. (Exactly how this bubble would be created is still a mystery.) According to their calculations and simplified, it would take a huge amount of energy to create the bubble, and then increasing amounts of energy to contain the highly repulsive dark energy.

Eventually the energy would run out. The bubble would rupture, with catastrophic effects. Inside the bubble the temperature would rise to about 10^32 degrees Kelvin, destroying almost anything on the bubble.

Anyone watching the ship nearby wouldn't be much better off.

"We know that the warp drive will be destabilized," said Finazzi. "But we do not know if it will in the end explode or collapse to a black hole."

Oh well. But it would probably look really cool while it lasted. [Discovery News, thanks Evan!]

Despite the event's name, the activities will actually continue through May 2nd, where there will be a celebration at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC. Astronauts from the recent Shuttle mission, STS-119, will be present, and there will be a live broadcast from the International Space Station.

The overall focus of this event is education, and as such, schools and civic groups have been invited and encouraged to participate. According to NASA, there will be educational activities at the museum from 10 a.m. until 3 p.m. EDT.

More information can be found here : http://www.spaceday.org

Image from the South Dakota Space Grant Consorteum, 2002

The two solar missions were discussed at a conference of solar physicists in Bournemouth this past weekend. One mission, spearheaded by the European Space Agency, will launch in 2017. Protected by a 15-inch heat shield, the solar orbiter will take pictures of the sun's poles and its surface, orbiting at a distance of 20 million miles - a third closer than Mercury. Its orbit will take it past the sun's poles. Here are some cool pics of the solar orbiter:

And then meanwhile NASA is launching a probe with the sexy, sexy name of Solar Probe Plus. Forget orbiting the sun - this baby will fly into the sun's upper atmosphere, known as the corona, and fly just 4.3 million miles above the surface. That's getting up close and personal! [Daily Telegraph]

Launched on April 11th, 1970, the Apollo 13 mission was the third crewed mission to the moon, heading to the Fra Mauro highlands, a cratered region of the Moon, which attracted the attention of scientists when seismomiteres left behind by Apollo 12 detected activity in the region.

Apollo 13, however, never made it to the lunar surface, as a mechanical malfunction caused an onboard explosion, crippling the command module. This wasn't the first problem on the mission, however, as one of the main engines shut off prematurely, causing the other boosters to fire longer to compensate. On April 13th, the #2 Oxygen tank exploded when a wire shorted out, losing oxygen that was needed by the crew and fuel cells. In the days after the explosion, Mission control worked to bring the spacecraft and crew around the moon, while also improvising a solution to the rising CO2 buildup in the ship.

On April 17th, the crew jettisoned the Landing Module, then Aquarius, the service module, and noted that an entire panel had been blown off the side of the craft. Shortly thereafter, the ship reentered the atmosphere, where they were recovered by USS Iwo Jimi in the Pacific Ocean.

The next Apollo mission, Apollo 14, was commanded by Alan Shepherd, the first American in space, and took over Apollo 13's expected mission to the Fra Mauro highlands.

This was the tenth manned Apollo mission, and the fifth mission to land on the moon, bringing Astronauts John Young and Charlie Duke.

The primary focus of this mission was to explore Descartes Highlands area, which is considered to be fairly representative of the moon's surface, and is composed of a series of plateaus and plains. This was the second mission to bring along a Lunar Rover, which the two astronauts used to drive a total of 16.5 miles, vastly expanding the range of the astronauts while exploring the lunar surface over the course of three EVA. The lunar landing was almost scrubbed after a malfunction, but the crew was able to land five days later on the 21st.

The mission was primarily geological in nature - scientists hoped to use the Descartes Highlands to discover more information about the formation of the moon. The three moonwalks were used to collect rock samples. The astronauts also deployed an ALSEP, or Apollo Lunar Surface Experiment Package, during their first excursion, which would measure seismic activities, solar wind, temperature and other measurable events on the lunar surface, which would run until 1977.

The Apollo 16 mission helped to redefine how we viewed the Lunar surface, and revised several theories as to the creation of the region around the mission site. (The area demonstrated impact created rocks, as opposed to volcanic ones, as had been previously thought.) It is now thought that meteors had a much greater impact in the formation of the modern surface of the moon.

The mission was a success, and the crew returned to Earth safely on April 27th, boasting several records - the return of the largest rock collected, and a moon-speed record of eleven miles an hour, which still stands today.

Mission Profile from NASA

Picture from NASA.

Chang'e-I was the first part of the Chinese Lunar Exploration Program, an orbital mission, which was designed to map the lunar surface in unprecedented detail with three-dimensional maps, providing valuable reference material for future lunar landings on the part of China's space program. The probe also gathered information about the Lunar surface, mapping elements and the composition of the lunar regolith as well as information on solar wind, all important information for upcoming missions to our nearest neighbor in space. The next part of their mission, Chang'e-2, is scheduled for launch in 2011, which has a similar mission to its sister Chang'e-I.

The ability to reach the moon is an important step for China, which recently conducted its first space walk with Shenzhou 7. Taikonauts Zhai Zhigang and Liu Boming left the spacecraft in September of 2008, before returning successfully to earth. Taken together, these two events show that China is well on its way towards the moon. Not only has China proved that they can put the proper hardware into orbit, they have the ability to put someone into space. NASA's own Gemini and early Apollo missions were designed to test each step that would be required to conduct lunar EVAs by showing that astronauts could reach orbit, but also walk outside.

In addition to lunar ambitions, China also recently announced plans to place a space station, Tiangong-1, in orbit, where orbital rendezvous and zero-gravity experiments can be undertaken. The ability to dock with another object in space is another important step towards lunar ambitions.

Getting to the moon is not an easy task - an aspiring lunar explorer must undertake a whole series of steps, each one requiring a lot of training and support. It took NASA almost a decade to go from orbit to landing on the moon, designing much of the hardware and testing it during that time, with the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo missions. China has the advantage in this regard, because many of the unknowns, such as basic medical questions have been answered already - we know that the lunar landing can be accomplished, and that humans can survive in zero-gravity for extended periods of time.

Upcoming missions for China include the Chang'e-2, which will be similar to Chang'e-1, Chang'e-3, which will attempt a 'soft' landing on the moon's surface, and will have rovers to explore the surface, with Chang'e-4 planned to land on the moon and return samples back to earth, expected in 2017.

This mission comes at a time when India and Iran have both launched satellites of their own, signaling future potential rivals in space, with North Korea also announcing that it plans to put a communications satellite into space in the near future. It would appear that there will be another space race within the next two decades, with the United States also intending to return to the moon within that time frame.

Read more from the BBC and Business Week. Photos from Xinhuanet and Cyber Space Orbit

Blogger mayank points to all the usual reasons why it'll be hard for our descendents to reach the nearest star system, Alpha Centauri: it would take 75,000 years withour current rockets, going faster requires more and more energy, etc. "Sending a 100-ton habitat, stuffed with a small crew, to Alpha Centauri at a speed that will deliver them before they turn up their toes requires as much energy as the United States consumes in a year."

But then there's also another point to consider: Mayank points out that in the past 70 years, our rocket technology has only gotten about 10 times faster. In about half that time, our imaging capabilities have gotten 5,000 times better and clearer. The Mariner 4 space probe in 1965 had a monochrome camera capable of capturing about 40,000 pixels. By contrast, the HiRise camera on today's Mars Reconnaisance Orbiter has a resolution of 200 million pixels, in color.

It'll be way ceheaper and easier to send probes to other star systems than it will to send humans — and soon our imaging capacity will be better than our limited human senses. It may just never make sense, from a logistical standpoint, to send a human instead of an automated probe. Food for thought, anyway. [World Of Technology]

Proxima Centauri image from Astronomy Picture Of The Day.

Mercury orbits the Sun once every 88 days, and it obviously believes we're jealous that it's so close to the Sun. Wrong again, Mercury! We're tired of this constant fighting about who has more active volcanos, okay? Just stay quiet as we attempt to photograph your southern half.

NASA's Mariner 10 probe passed Mercury three times in 1974 and 1975, but this is the first extended look we've gotten at the first planet from the sun since. The Messenger's mission may be complicated by the irrefutable fact, suggested by astrologer Susan Miller, that Mercury in retrograde affects electronic devices on Earth, and took down the Hubble. This is an old theme that's been bouncing around in astrological circles for some time.

Messenger will be photographing places previously unseen, including parts of its Southern hemisphere referred to as Mercury's "junk." Mercury has been shrinking, and more images may give us a better idea of why that's happening. (Our guess is that it's dieting because of shiny new planets intruding on its turf.) A spacecraft won't get in orbit with the planet until 2011, and the resulting post-orbit period will no doubt be full of awkward recriminations and a Messenger-Mercury sextape. Here's some scandalous imagery to tide you over until then.

The APA introduced their ideas at their recent convention, drawing from past studies of astronaut psychology and even records of explorers from centuries past.

1. Have an electronic psychologist on board. The APA has already developed a computer program that will let astronauts discuss their psychological issues and assist with conflict resolution. Why a computer? Astronauts don't like to tell human doctors about their issues because they're afraid they might lose flight privileges.

2. Create a home away from home. Astronauts on board the International Space Station are isolated, but they can radio down to Earth easily. Martian explorers will have a hard time even seeing Earth, which could have a profound psychological effect. Psychologists recommend a regular schedule of communications with family and friends back home, even if there's a lengthy delay between "send" and "receive." Anything that connects the astronauts to Earth will combat crippling homesickness.

3. Find out how they dealt with these problems in the past. Tomorrow's explorers will follow in the figurative footsteps of Columbus and Balboa in ships like NASA's Orion, pictured. In many ways, those explorers dealt with a lot of the same problems, such as close quarters, isolation from family and friends and potential problems with other members of the crew. The APA says it plans to study historical records from Earth-bound explorers to find out how they did it. Image by: NASA

To The Moon And Mars: Psychologists Show New Ways To Deal With Health Challenges In Space. [Science Daily]

Ruth's letter says it all:

Please forward this to the proper channels. I have read Stephen Hawking's latest remarks on space travel and the importance of it to human survival. The problem is, NASA is going about it all the wrong way.

Here is an idea: Send battle-hardened, strong-minded soldiers and marines on the long trips into space. We are conditioned to live with the bare minimal (of) life's necessities and are trained to be prepared for ... the worst conditions that any environment could throw at us.

Hell, me and my men will go, set up a colony somewhere and await colonists to arrive.

Me and most of my men are on our 3rd or 4th deployment into a combat area. We are scouts, reconnaissance specialists. We go before everyone else and spend time living off the land. Sounds just like the type of men needed for a long colonization journey.

Please pass this message on to anyone you know in the space program. (T)here are many men already trained and prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice for their country and the human race.

Thank you for you time.

SFC Ruth, 101st Airborne Division. Afghanistan

Source: LiveScience.com

Images by AP/Dmitry Lovetsky

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