moon

Martian Irrigation Canals

As bizarre as it may seem now, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries it was commonly believed that there were artificial canals on Mars. The rumor started in 1877 when Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli observed long, linear features on Martian surface through his telescope. He named the features "canali," which translates to "channels" or "canals" in Italian. Schiaparelli did not intend for the term to be interpreted as "artificial" canals; he actually meant simply "narrow waterways." But the coined phrase took on a life of its own, and some people even believed that Martian intelligent life had constructed a canal system to bring water from the polar regions to its cities.

Like most visitors to Hawaii, David Wettergreen spent his two-week trip there in the sand. But instead of sunbathing, he was busy putting Scarab, his robotic moon rover, through rigorous test drives in the lunar-like volcanic ash-filled crater at Mauna Kea.

NASA Administrator Michael Griffin is not playing nice with the Obama transition team, according to a post by Robert Block of the Orlando Sentinel. He reports that Griffin is resisting efforts by former NASA associate administrator Lori Garver, who heads Obama's space transition team, to "look under the hood" of the space program.

When lunar astronauts flick on their televisions after a long day of prospecting, they’ll have a trashcan-size nuclear reactor to thank for their nightly dose of prime time. NASA, looking past the already daunting task of simply getting humans to the moon by 2020, recently started considering proposals for ways to power lunar habitats. Batteries and fuel cells provide only short-term solutions. Solar power would be limited where a single night lasts as long as 354 hours. So space-agency officials have started making plans to go nuclear.

When lunar astronauts flick on their televisions after a long day of prospecting, they’ll have a trashcan-size nuclear reactor to thank for their nightly dose of prime time. NASA, looking past the already daunting task of simply getting humans to the moon by 2020, recently started considering proposals for ways to power lunar habitats. Batteries and fuel cells provide only short-term solutions. Solar power would be limited where a single night lasts as long as 354 hours. So space-agency officials have started making plans to go nuclear.

When the Apollo astronauts drove around on the moon, they had to settle for a little buggy. But if you want to tour the Sea of Tranquility in the family SUV or a Ferrari, well, you're looking at more than a few weekends under the hood.

In today's featured reader question, DiGMEH from Montreal wonders "Why not send someone again [to the Moon] now? Technology is better and they have more experience and money for it..."

It's an interesting question. Is it a matter of priorities, of money, of something else?

Submit your science and technology questions to fyi@popsci.com.

Snug in Earth’s orbit, Hubble is free from the background glare that earthly telescopes must fight to see the stars. This allows its supersensitive camera to take better photos of galaxies farther away—and thus much dimmer—than any optical telescope on the ground can. But despite being closer to the moon than any other telescope, there’s no way the scope could snap a photo of that one small step man took 40 years ago.

Space Adventures, the broker of the first tourist flights to space celebrated its ten-year anniversary today here at the Explorer's Club in New York with the announcement that it had scored a deal with the Russian Federal Space Agency, or RKA, to buy an entire flight to the International Space Station.

Laser radar systems now being developed at Rochester Institute of Technology and MIT's famed Lincoln Lab could eventually generate ultra-detailed, three-dimensional maps of planets, comets, asteroids and moons. The scientists are developing a LIDAR (light detection and ranging) technology that operates both in the optical and ultraviolet, and could deliver detailed information about atmospheric composition, plus air temperature and pressure, wind speed, and precise topological features of a planet or planetary body.

Sure, you can sign up for a little piece of property on the Moon, but the little certificate you get in return won't mean anything. Now that the space tourism industry is starting to heat up, though, a few space lovers are calling for a plan to truly open up the lunar real estate business.

The board that has been tasked with reviewing NASA's plans to build a craft that will return astronauts to the Moon apparently has too many insiders.

When the shuttle retires in 2010, as many as 8,000 NASA contractors could lose their jobs. After a request from lawmakers, NASA released these numbers yesterday, but added that this could be a worst case scenario. The Kennedy Space Center would suffer the biggest losses, with 80 percent of its contract workers losing their jobs by 2011.

Using the highest-resolution mapping data of the moon's south pole ever obtained, NASA has created an animation that shows what it would look like to descend to the rim of the Shackleton Crater—which has been proposed as a landing site for a future human mission.

Engineers at Johnson Space Center in Houston this week released a design for a rugged lunar vehicle that astronauts could one day drive around the Moon. The truck has six wheels, no doors or roof, all-wheel drive, and it would be ideal for parallel parking.