News Archive / Tagged: Constellation

• OPINION: What’s the worst thing that could happen to NASA under Trump’s presidency?

  Jason RhianNovember 13th, 2016

  A Trump presidency, often joked about and derided, is now a reality. With Donald Trump often described as the “ultimate outsider”, what should, or rather, what shouldn’t the president-elect do regarding space policy.

• OPINION: EFT-1 – a sign politicians need to pick up the pace

  Collin SkocikDecember 7th, 2014

  On the morning of Dec. 5, 2014, a Delta IV Heavy rocket launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, carrying the first Orion spacecraft into space. Although this particular Orion was unmanned, Exploration Test Flight 1 (EFT-1) was the first launch of a crew-capable spacecraft designed for deep space missions from Cape Canaveral […]

• OPINION: Tone down the political rhetoric around space issues

  Collin SkocikSeptember 7th, 2014

  The partisan divide in America is deep and frightening. There seems to be little, if any civil discourse between the two prevailing political ideologies of the day—liberal and conservative. And since President Obama canceled the Constellation Program, many on the right have attempted to claim the space platform as their own.

• OPINION: Fund NASA or shut it down

  Collin SkocikJuly 27th, 2014

  A recently-issued audit by the Government Accountability Office or “GAO” detailed how NASA lacks the funding to fly the Space Launch System (SLS ) by its scheduled launch date in December of 2017. This is only the latest delay for the successor to the space shuttle, originally ordered by President George W. Bush to fly no later than […]

• Herschel spies budding stars and a giant, strange ring

  NASAJune 14th, 2014

  The Herschel Space Observatory has uncovered a weird ring of dusty material while obtaining one of the sharpest scans to date of a huge cloud of gas and dust, called NGC 7538. The observations have revealed numerous clumps of material, a baker’s dozen of which may evolve into the most powerful kinds of stars in […]

• Testing begins on a new instrument to be added to NASA’s flying observatory

  Britt RawcliffeJune 5th, 2014

  NASA’s Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) is getting outfitted with a new instrument which is set to provide astronomers and scientists with observations only possible from the sky. The high-resolution, mid-infrared spectrograph, called the Echelon-Cross-Echelle Spectrograph (EXES), began testing on the nights of April 7 and 9, according to Matthew Richter, leader of the […]

• Hubble Team Unveils Most Colorful View of Universe Yet

  NASAJune 5th, 2014

  Astronomers using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope have assembled a comprehensive picture of the evolving universe – among the most colorful deep space images ever captured by the 24-year-old telescope. Researchers say the image, in new study called the Ultraviolet Coverage of the Hubble Ultra Deep Field, provides the missing link in star formation. The Hubble […]

• Opinion: The War of the Worlds – To the Moon or Mars?

  Collin SkocikJune 2nd, 2014

  The space community is deeply divided. One group believes we need to focus our manned space efforts on returning to the Moon. Another believes we should bypass the Moon and go straight to Mars. The two groups see one another as enemies, but there is no reason for this to be so. The pro-space community […]

• Opinion: What happened to Charlie Bolden?

  Collin SkocikMarch 30th, 2014

  Major General Charles Frank Bolden, Jr. is one of NASA’s most accomplished astronauts. A former Marine Naval Aviator and test pilot, Bolden was selected as an astronaut in 1980. He served as astronaut safety officer and was the first astronaut to ride the slide wire escape system from the launch pad. Since he became NASA […]

• NASA’s Swift Catches X-ray Action at Milky Way’s Center

  Press ReleaseJanuary 9th, 2014

  Recent observations by NASA’s Swift spacecraft have provided scientists a unique glimpse into the activity at the center of our galaxy and led to the discovery of a rare celestial entity that may help them test predictions of Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity.