NASA claims the White House is ready to walk away from the $100 billion International Space Station.
NASA has already worked with but now several countries (Canada and Germany, India) are starting to show interest in tiny microsatellites.
Earlier we discussed the coming war in space and China's Moon Strategy, now this interesting article by Michael Moore raises some further interesting points.
In support of our previous story on the coming of the war in space comes news of the rocket launch carrying NAVSTAR Global Positioning System Block IIR military navigation satellite.
England is teaming up with NASA to provide an unmanned moon probe mission. The mission will fire four "penetrator" missile darts that will probe the moon and return research data back to Earth. Some of the data the penetrator darts will look for are moonquakes which may provide additional information on the physical structure and composition of the moon. The mission may be ready to launch by 2012.
Today from the Isle of Man Odyssey Moon announced they are accepting the Lunar X Prize challenge. Not anyone can announce this since it requires a $10,000 registration fee.
In order to determine whether the moon ever contained water ice NASA is planning on bombing the moon with "impactors". The impactors are really rockets and will cause a large impact which will be "analyzed for the presence of hydrated minerals".
Earlier we talked about Wernher von Braun's papers were being auctioned off. The auction has finished and according to this post Wernher von Braun's Phd papers sold for $33k.
Fast Company has an interesting article on how NASA is designing their next space ship Orion to use more off the shelf technology and less inventing from new. This shift in methodology is in the hope of improving costs by borrowing from good old american business sense.
Google has announced the Google Lunar X-Prize for international individuals and companies to compete in a race to be the first to land and operate a craft on the surface of the moon. Bonuses are provided for competitors who achieve various objectives. It is expected that this competition will challenge and motivate engineers to innovate and advance low cost methods for traveling to the moon and beyond.
There are official question and answer for clarification on what is required.
Google last September announced that more than $20 million dollars were available in the Google X Prize for the first team that is able to land a privately funded craft on the moon and be able to move it at least 500 meters with a video (a Mooncast) sent back to humans on Earth.
| Prize Amount | Name | Description |
| $30million | Total | Grand Prize + 2nd Prize + Bonuses |
| $20million | Grand Prize | team must successfully soft land a privately funded spacecraft on the Moon, rove on the lunar surface for a minimum of 500 meters, and transmit a specific set of video, images and data back to the Earth |
| $15million | Grand Prize after Dec 31 2012 | Same as Grand Prize, later date |
Additionally, Google has pulled all the stops in creating this Hollywood-esque promotional video to get people excited about their X-prize:
There are over 18,000 man made objects orbiting the Earth and some say the destruction of a satellite by the chinese earlier this year is a sign of the star wars to come. This comes despite a 40 year old international treaty against such actions.
People with access to intelligence (including Rumsfeld) have come out and warned us about foreign competition. The fact that the U.S. may be less prone to attack from tanks and planes on Earth and more prone to losing strategic technology in space may concern leaders.
Last month China launched a lunar orbiter with relatively little fanfare or mainstream press recognition. Now questions have arisen as to what exactly are the Chinese plans for the Moon. NASA has made warnings, speculation has been put forth claiming the Chinese are looking to be the 1st or 2nd most relevant space program.
In relative time the history between Google and NASA is short (2 years), however during this history there have been some worthy highlights including:
