Tag Archives: nasa

NASA revs up manned space program to Mars

NASA conducted an exploration forum this week where several administrators, scientists and other NASA personnel outlined how this US space agency plans to land human astronauts first on an asteroid and then Mars. They hope accomplish the manned Mars mission by 2030. One can speculate whether unofficial work has already been done for such initiatives but this does mark an important point in NASA’s public push to take humans to outer space – the first one since the mission to put man on the moon.

The full presentation is long (2.5 hours) but worth watching for  space enthusiasts and budding, future astronauts 🙂

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Where are NASA’s space launch sites?

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has several space launch facilities in the United States and US controlled territories. The main East Coast facility in the Unites States is Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Brevard County, Florida. This facility is adjacent to the Kennedy Space Center and is used for east-west launch orbit spacecraft.

Kennedy Space Center - SecretsofSpace.com
Kennedy Space Center fridge magnet

NASA’s main west coast facility is located at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. Located in Central California, Vandenberg is preferred for spacecraft requiring a north-south orbit.

Vandenburg - NASA
An Atlas V rocket on the launch pad at Vandenburg Air Force base

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NASA talks exoplanets, Kepler, Hubble & more @SXSW

Here is footage of a hangout done by NASA at the 2014 South by Southwest (SXSW) in Austin, Texas. Their topics of discussion included:

  • exoplanets and the search for life in the rest of the universe;
  • demonstration of a new app for visualizing Kepler data which could help us find Earth like planets around other stars;
  • Hubble space telescope demo
  • James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) Panel “First Signs: Finding Life on Other Planets.”

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