Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Several Interesting articles

I managed to find an internet cafe in a South African national park. A quick survey of several websites found several interesting articles you may want to read.

Aviation Week has an article on the Decadal Survey. The article lists the focus groups that will prepare white papers on the current state of the science and the recommended missions to address key questions. "The survey team will consist of six panels - a steering committee headed by Squyres, and panels covering the inner planets (Mercury, Venus, the moon); Mars; the outer planets (including magnetospheres and rings), the satellites of the outer planet, and primitive bodies - asteroids, comets and the Kuiper Belt." http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/generic/story_channel.jsp?channel=space&id=news/Decadal041609.xml

A quick overview of the upcoming Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30316051/

NASA Watch has a summary of several articles on the budget pressures at NASA. The summary: Too many goals, not enough budget, continued problems meeting goals. http://www.nasawatch.com/archives/2009/04/congressional_b.html

Space Politics has a similar summary plus some lively discussion. http://www.spacepolitics.com/2009/04/16/cbo-costs-out-various-nasa-budget-options/

Space.com has an article on preliminary study for a possible lander for Ceres. If the Dawn mission finds strong evidence for water as is expected, then this asteroid could become a focus target for future missions. (Unfortunately, the magnetometer was dropped from the mission to save money, so we can't get direct confirmation of a buried ocean.) http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/090416-am-ceres-lander.html

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