Mars will be transformed into a shirt-sleeve, habitable world for humanity before century's end, made livable by thawing out the coldish climes of the red planet and altering its now carbon dioxide-rich atmosphere, according to one researcher.
U.S. President George W. Bush has authorized a sweeping new national space policy, green-lighting an overarching national policy that governs the conduct of America's space activities.
A new report from the Pentagon finds that China's escalating expertise in space is also enhancing its competence as a global military force. Along with lofting future radar, ocean surveillance, and high -resolution photoreconnaissance satellites, China's rise as a space power also includes pursuit of an offensive anti-satellite system.
An unprecedented salvo of international probes will soon shoot for the Moon, all equipped to signal that a new era of lunar exploration has begun. If schedules hold, spacecraft from India, China and Japan will be moonbound before NASA's own Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter swings into action in 2008. Already on duty, the European Space Agency's SMART-1 is wrapping up its survey work.
China is celebrating its 50th anniversary of space progress this year, but also laying out a sweeping plan for lofting Earth orbiting satellites for a multitude of duties, expanding its human spaceflight abilities, and carrying out a multi-step program of lunar exploration.
NASA is fleshing out details of launch vehicles, robotic and human exploration systems that can enable a sustained back to the Moon effort, including possible establishment of an Antarctic-like lunar outpost.
There is a new breed of weaponry fast approaching—and at the speed of light no less. They are labeled "directed-energy weapons" and may well signal a revolution in military hardware—perhaps more so than the atomic bomb.
Near Space is a region where few aircraft can tread. Floating high above the jet stream, lighter-than-air ships are now deemed as a way to loiter at length. They appear ideal for keeping tabs on a foe’s troops or delivering telecommunications services to your own warriors.
The one-two hurricane punch from Katrina and Wilma along with predictions of more severe weather in the future has scientists pondering ways to save lives, protect property and possibly even control the weather. In fact, military officials and weather modification experts could be on the verge of joining forces to better gauge, react to, and possibly nullify future hostile forces churned out by Mother Nature.
A look at 'cubesats', an on-going revolution in building tiny and cheap satellites that could bring space science to the masses in the same way the personal computer democratized computing.