NASA's grand plan to return to the moon, built on President George W. Bush's vision of an ambitious new chapter in space exploration, is about to vanish with hardly a whimper. With the release Monday of President Obama's budget request, NASA will finally get the new administration's marching orders, and there won't be anything in there about flying to the moon.

The discovery of water on the moon announced this week could make our celestial neighbor a more attractive candidate for a future manned mission.

The discovery of widespread but small amounts water on the surface of the moon, announced yesterday, stands as one of the most surprising findings in planetary science. Three spacecraft picked up the signature of water, not just in the frigid polar craters where it has long been suspected to exist, but all over the lunar surface, which was previously thought to be bone dry.

India's Chandrayaan-1 lunar orbiter mission, which launched last October, ended 14 months prematurely Saturday after an abrupt malfunction, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) said in a statement.

US ambitions for manned space exploration have hit a major hurdle in the wake of severe budget constraints, according to preliminary findings of a panel appointed by President Barack Obama.

Researchers at NASA and the Department of Energy recently tested key technologies for developing a nuclear fission reactor that could power a human outpost on the moon or Mars. The tests prove that the agencies could build a "safe, reliable, and efficient" system by 2020, the year NASA plans to return humans to the moon.

Uranium exists on the moon, according to new data from a Japanese spacecraft. The revelation suggests that nuclear power plants could be built on the moon, or even that Earth's satellite could serve as a mining source for uranium needed back home.

Michio Kaku surveys the growing number nations planning competing missions to the moon (including Japan, China, India, and the U.S.) and argues that the growing lunar competition should motivate a re-examination of the 1967 Outer Space Treaty "before national rivalries and tensions heat up as we approach 2020."

NASA astronauts may not be assigned to a stint at a lunar base anytime soon. A statement by a NASA official suggested that the space agency is likely to scrap the idea of a permanent moon base, but could instead try to speed up other, more ambitious manned missions to explore our solar system.

Japan hopes to have a two-legged robot walk on the moon by around 2020, with a joint mission involving astronauts and robots to follow, according to a plan laid out Friday by a government group.