I fully support the use of human cadavers as expressed in this article. I recently added the organ donor option to my drivers license and would be interested in donating the rest of my remains to space science but I'm not sure how! Steve

with out proper funding there is almost certinly delays, the same thing happend in both the apollo and shuttle programs, there will be challenges that we do not know yet in developing a new spae craft and rocket. Robert Law

This is relay impresive , the idea of a space station in low lunar orbit opens up all sorts of opertunity's the main one crew survival shelter if we have anouther apollo 13 type incident, the lunar space station also opens the door for space tourisim , which could then help generate funding for lunar operations. I am glad we are in Europe waking up to the opertunity's of human space exploration. If we dont we will be left behind by both China and India Robert Law

EXCUSE ME???!!! WINTER ENDED ON MARCH 20th!!!! On May 30-31st, SUMMER is 3 weeks away; even in the Antarctic and Arctic. If people can't get SIMPLE IRREFUTABLE FACTS correct, how can we accept what they're saying here is true? I for one cannot! 18 months ago it was the NW passage opening showing a 5 day before and after picture: with 75% of the melted Ice grown back in the later picture! Depicted as more Global Warming evidence - sorree, I mean of course: "Climate Change"! The general public is being lied to. It is bad enough that the Politicos lie through there teeth, but now it's scientists; the truth seekers. My Eye! Well, come back God and the Devil: all is forgiven...

Wayne, what is that reference to "a bus ride to Abilene" about? I tried to Google it, but got nothing. I like your blog so far.

Hi Wayne, I have just a question about the Phoenix Lander from a big fan of NASA's. If there is organic material or high concentration of carbon at the Phoenix landing site will that information be made public right away? I asked that question because Mars may be alive right now, several days ago I showed on space.com message board that the Water ice was sublimating and told people how to verify it themselves, 2 days before NASA confirmed it.You can find the time-line here: http://www.space.com/common/community/forums/?plckForumPage=ForumDiscussion&plckDiscussionId=Cat:c7921f8b-94ec-454a-9715-3770aac6e2caForum:bf7b9387-46b4-47ed-ad5b-34a5350b82ecDiscussion:9a92d6c4-86a5-4b35-8183-6c97a30c6f8c&plckCurrentPage=45&sid=sitelife.space.com Now I found an animation that I put together of a worm-like movement from the Phoenix Lander microscopic imager that is even more extraordinary, if verified by NASA scientist. NASA and ASU are currently looking at another set of microscopic images. If the ovens that they are cooking soil in show high organic compounds or even substantial amount of carbon then this can be the beginning foundations for the search for life outside our space rock and this may be the first ET you see. An animation from the Phoenix Microscopic imager that shows something crawling around, what it is we don't know - ice-worm, nematode or it could just be an artifact shadow-like effect. YouTube animation is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QnrY9OSSFRg Board where this is being discussed: http://www.space.com/common/community/forums/?plckForumPage=ForumDiscussion&plckDiscussionId=Cat:c7921f8b-94ec-454a-9715-3770aac6e2caForum:bf7b9387-46b4-47ed-ad5b-34a5350b82ecDiscussion:9a92d6c4-86a5-4b35-8183-6c97a30c6f8c&plckCurrentPage=40&sid=sitelife.space.com http://www.space.com/common/community/forums/?plckForumPage=ForumDiscussion&plckDiscussionId=Cat%3ac7921f8b-94ec-454a-9715-3770aac6e2caForum%3ad148ee4c-9f4c-47f9-aa95-7a42941583c6Discussion%3a436f90e5-d3e9-4c9d-ad0c-2ae4473dfbd0&plckCategoryCurrentPage=0

That’s good news but I tipped then off 2 days before they announce that on Space.coms message board see, I even told them how to proof it, by animation see: http://www.space.com/common/community/forums/?plckForumPage=ForumDiscussion&plckDiscussionId=Cat:c7921f8b-94ec-454a-9715-3770aac6e2caForum:d148ee4c-9f4c-47f9-aa95-7a42941583c6Discussion:436f90e5-d3e9-4c9d-ad0c-2ae4473dfbd0&plckCurrentPage=26&sid=sitelife.space.com Three cheers for??? Now that we got that out of our way the next big leap is when they discover high concentrations of carbon in the soil. Knowing how long it was to state the obvious that there is ice on Mars, it will take them another 40 years to prove that some of the creepy crawlers moving around in those dug trenches are really life forms..... See animation of a third kind here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QnrY9OSSFRg Ice-worms that live on and in glaciers are prime extrmeophiles for mars. The live in high altitudes, sometimes in the winter it gets over 150 below zero on certain parts of the glaciers on Mt McKinley but they always show up in the spring…

It was exciting seeing this announced on Twitter last night!

A VERY cool start involving what we could use when we return to the moon..Lets hope a rocket will be built sooner rather than later to get us there!! jb

I am loving the evolution of the Chariot. Was there any talk on the Tri-ATHLETE? Is there any way we can get a hold of higher res pictures?

Keith, just don't believe that 99.999% of Humanity supports your view. I, and many others here in Europe, think it was absolutely right to demote Pluto. Besides the various other good reasons brought forth by IAU, there is a very obvious reason for this: We may soon find countless of other Pluto-like planets out there, and it would be practically impossible for people to remember all of them. If we have to choose between 8 or 100, I choose 8 planets! Of course, the universe doesn't care. We Humans like to classify everything, but does it really matter? Why do you and Alan Stern feels so strongly about this? Of course, sometimes we all have to realize that something we learned in school is wrong. I guess the real reason that you guys are so emotional about this, is because Pluto was the only planet discovered by an American. And that is definitely not a reason to keep Pluto as a planet. Don't mix national pride with science!

What? It's now a problem that people learned things in school that later proved to be wrong? And that it might be hard for them to understand why? Well then, why stop here? Why not go back to the old models of how atoms work (or scrap atoms altogether - esoteric!)? Return to the simple world Mendel's view of genetics (which was quite easy)? Fewer dinosaurs? Newtonian mechanics (none of that complicated relativity stuff)?

Oh, boohoo. I thought the purpose of science was two fold. First, to prove continuously that the things we learned in school were wrong and second to adopt a common language so we can speak to each other. I suppose Einstein should never have published because he might upset the Newton fanboys who thought he had written the definitive treatise on gravity! What is with the almost psychotic devotion to calling Pluto and its perhaps thousands or millions of ilk a "planet"? As the science changes and the discoveries mount, the language should change accordingly. Blind adherence to some word is worse that accepting change. I'm not defending this particular definition of "planet" mind you. I don't know if it is appropriate or not. But to call this snobbery is simply ludicrous and itself is blind to scientific progress.

This is a really interesting story...but the title is a little weird. The mineral was discovered by a NASA researcher, not the airplane! Also, this is a new mineral, not just a new comet mineral.

Source: http://blog.methemedia.com/archives/13 (links included) = = = Worldwide Me-the-Media Mars Scoop June 2nd, 2008 May 25, Phoenix, the next Mars Explorer, landed on the Red Planet. Phoenix has a DVD-ROM on it, visible for all aliens, next to the US flag image. What on Earth and for heaven's sake, I wondered, does it say in the text block just beneath the disk's center? This thing, made of a special silica glass, of course is meant to be Me-marketing par excellence: the first digital library representing human kind as such, our archetypal Me, on this most of the time icecold planet nearby. To get a clue, I loaded a fairly hires picture from the web, oversized it on a PowerPoint slide, put on my +1.0 reading spectacles, focused my eyes, and tried to decipher the text. It wasn't easy at all, but finally I managed to get the full picture. However, I'm not sure about the word with the (? ? . . . ? ?) behind it. Someone help me please, to solve this final mystery! Well, below is what I made of it, imho a little hilarious and actually strictly relevant for the record to visitors in some down-to-earth space museum: "This archive, provided to the NASA Phoenix mission by The Planetary Society, contains literature and art (Vison of Mars), greetings from Mars visionaries of our day, and names of 21st century Earthlings who wanted to send their names to Mars. This DVD-ROM is designed to be read on personal computers in 2007. Information is stored in a spiral groove on the disc. A laser beam can scan the groove when metallized or a microscope can be used. Very small bumps and holes ( ? ? not sure about this ? ? ) represent the zeroes and ones of digital information. The groove is about 0,74 microns wide. For more information refer to the standards document ECMA-268 (80 mm DVD Read-Only Disk)." This discovery was made on June 1 by Jaap Bloem, co-author of the Me the Media book, currently in Dutch, but to be published in English and French as well (jaapbloem@gmail.com). On June 7 the text was submitted to the Wikipedia Phoenix spacecraft lemma. = = =

I wonder if the star Gliese 581 which has, among its three planets, a very convincing earth-like planet is within the elliptic plane? From the discovery descriptions I have recently read, Gliese 581's third planet could be the source of our first ET contact.

The proposed experiments are fundamentally flawed - in that the subjects are not going anywhere. After hundreds of days, they will emerge from their isolation not onto a new world but the same one they 'left'

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Phoenix is a masterpiece of innovative technology that blended bits and pieces of the old with the latest in planning,implementation and control. Good work, a significant accomplishment, and all participants should be pleased and proud. Asclepiuslive

Jay Ingra the TV announcer for the Mars Landing ruined the landing by continuing to talk. He couldn't stop talking so that we at home could hear from the controllers. What a loss. Boo to the Discovery Channel.