Space Exploration

NASA lost its $125-million Mars Climate Orbiter because spacecraft engineers failed to convert from English to metric measurements when exchanging vital data before the craft was launched, space agency officials said Thursday.

It will come as news to many, no doubt, that there is a Warhol on the moon. And a Rauschenberg and an Oldenburg - a whole "Moon Museum," in fact, containing the work of six artists in all, in the form of drawings inscribed on the surface of a ceramic chip roughly the size of a thumbprint. Conceived by the artist Forrest Myers in 1969, the chip was fabricated in collaboration with scientists at Bell Laboratories and illicitly slipped by a willing engineer between some sheets of insulation on the Apollo 12 lander module.

Until this century, we could only observe space from Earth, but in 1957, the first man-made satellite was launched. Now, we explore other planets with robotic vehicles and astronauts live in a space station. Scientists also scan the heavens using powerful telescopes to learn about planets, comets, asteroids, nebulas, stars and other galaxies. To learn more about space exploration, use the direct links on The Times Launch Point Web site: http://www.latimes.

BEIRUT - U.S. officials are not exactly welcoming Iran's revelation this week that the Islamic Republic has sent a monkey into space and brought the creature back to Earth safely. The report by Iranian media recalled for many the early days of space flight, when both the United States and the Soviet Union launched animal-bearing spacecraft as a prelude to human space travel. But State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland told reporters in Washington on Monday that the reported mission raises concerns about possible Iranian violations of a United Nations  ban on development of ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons.

WATERTON CANYON, Colo. - The concrete-floored room looks, at first glance, like little more than a garage. There is a red tool chest, its drawers labeled: "Hacksaws. " "Allen wrenches. " There are stepladders and vise grips. There is also, at one end of the room, a half-built spaceship, and everyone is wearing toe-to-fingertip protective suits. "Don't. Touch. Anything. " Bruce Jakosky says the words politely but tautly, like a protective father - which, effectively, he is. Jakosky is the principal investigator behind NASA's next mission to Mars, putting him in the vanguard of an arcane niche of science: planetary protection - the science of exploring space without messing it up. PHOTOS: Stunning images of Earth at night As NASA pursues the search for life in the solar system, the cleanliness of robotic explorers is crucial to avoid contaminating other worlds.

Re "Uncertain Science in Orbit," Feb. 5: NASA should be directed to conduct only unmanned space exploration. It is cheaper, less complex and will not involve the loss of life. The ongoing Columbia accident investigation boards will come up with some safety recommendations for future space missions. Eventually NASA will drift back into its pre-Columbia ways, there will be another catastrophic accident, and the cycle will repeat itself. The best solution is unmanned space flight. Ronald Hart Palmdale How is it that less than a week after the Columbia disaster an inquiry is up and running, but almost a year and a half later the Bush administration is still dragging its feet over the Sept.

Here's the rundown on guests and topics for the weekend's public-affairs programs: Today "Saturday Journal": 5 a.m. C-SPAN. "Evans & Novak": Marion Barry, mayor of Washington, D.C., 2:30 p.m., repeats Sunday, 7 a.m. CNN. "John McLaughlin's One on One": Michael Bloomberg, 2:30 p.m. (28). "Tony Brown's Journal": roots of music featuring black hymns, slave songs, 3:30 p.m. (28). "Inside Politics Weekend": 3:30 p.m.; repeats midnight CNN. "Capital Gang Saturday": Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.

Space Exploration Technologies Corp., a start-up seeking to slash the cost of coursing through the cosmos, has been granted a five-year license to launch rockets from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, the Air Force said. The approval could help El Segundo-based SpaceX, as the privately held company is known, compete with Orbital Sciences Corp., which develops small space systems, and later with the bigger rockets of Europe's Arianspace and the United Launch Alliance.

Re "Rock analysis turns up evidence of moon water," July 10 I am not surprised by this news of ancient water on the moon. The knowledge about our universe accumulated by NASA and space researchers over the last 50 years has completely revised our image of the cosmos. In the early 1950s, most people thought that most of the observable universe was an empty void where very little had been happening. We have since learned that water is probably one of the most common resources in our solar systems and that almost every planet and moon had, or now has, deposits of water in one form or another.

Re "Longest-Serving NASA Chief to Quit," Oct. 18: Let us hope that whoever succeeds outgoing NASA administrator Daniel S. Goldin will continue to pursue interplanetary space exploration with the same enthusiasm that he did. Specifically, NASA should commit itself to sending a man-made probe on a fly-by mission to Pluto. The importance of exploring Pluto cannot be overstated. It is the only planet in our solar system discovered by an American, but it remains the only one not yet visited by a U.S. spacecraft.

WATERTON CANYON, Colo. - The concrete-floored room looks, at first glance, like little more than a garage. There is a red tool chest, its drawers labeled: "Hacksaws. " "Allen wrenches. " There are stepladders and vise grips. There is also, at one end of the room, a half-built spaceship, and everyone is wearing toe-to-fingertip protective suits. "Don't. Touch. Anything. " Bruce Jakosky says the words politely but tautly, like a protective father - which, effectively, he is. Jakosky is the principal investigator behind NASA's next mission to Mars, putting him in the vanguard of an arcane niche of science: planetary protection - the science of exploring space without messing it up. PHOTOS: Stunning images of Earth at night As NASA pursues the search for life in the solar system, the cleanliness of robotic explorers is crucial to avoid contaminating other worlds.

Years of trying to do too many things with too little money have put NASA at risk of ceding leadership in space exploration to other nations, according to a new report that calls on the space agency to make wrenching decisions about its long-term strategy and future scope. As other countries - including some potential adversaries - are investing heavily in space, federal funding for NASA is essentially flat and under constant threat of being cut. Without a clear vision, that fiscal uncertainty makes it all the more difficult for the agency to make progress on ambitious goals like sending astronauts to an asteroid or Mars while executing big-ticket science missions, such as the $8.8-billion James Webb Space Telescope, says the analysis released Wednesday by the National Research Council.

What should the future of our space program be? The National Research Council had unpleasant medicine for NASA in its just-released report on the vision and direction of the agency. A panel of 12 independent experts concluded, among other things, that the program lacks clear direction from the White House and Congress about what its goals should be, and that NASA cannot do everything it aims to without more money. More cash is an unlikely prospect in the current economic climate, the panel also said.

As Paul D. Ryan campaigned near Florida's Space Coast, Mitt Romney on Saturday released a plan for space exploration that said remaining the global  leader in that arena is vital for the nation's economic and security needs. With an eye toward impressing crucial Florida voters, Romney and his running mate also argued that President Obama  has allowed the nation's space dominance to erode. "He has put the space program on a path where we're conceding our position as the unequivocal leader in space," Ryan said in Orlando on Saturday, the Associated Press reported.

One leg of the space shuttle Endeavour's final journey has been delayed because of bad weather, but the craft will still arrive in Los Angeles on schedule Thursday, NASA announced Sunday. Endeavour was to travel from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., to Houston on Monday but the flight was pushed back one day because of storms. Despite the delay, the shuttle -- mounted on a Boeing 747 aircraft -- will still do low-level flyovers in Florida, Texas, New Mexico and Northern and Southern California before touching down in L.A. After arriving, Endeavour will spend several weeks in the United Airlines hangar at Los Angeles International Airport undergoing preparations for a two-day, 12-mile journey on Oct. 12 and 13 via surface streets to the California Science Center in Exposition Park.

The landing of the Curiosity spacecraft on Mars created a moment of singular American triumph, the kind politicians seemingly love to own. But in a nation suffering high unemployment and economic trepidation, no one expected Sunday's emotionally charged landing on the Red Planet to recharge the muted national conversation about space exploration.   Mitt Romney, who is yet to outline a detailed program for space, did not comment about Curiosity. President Obama - whose program calls for doing more with less, including funding cuts for planetary missions - trumpeted the historic moment in a prepared statement.

Re "Looking at Mars," editorial, July 23 Once again, I must disagree with your editorial on the future of spaceflight and your continued opposition to human exploration. Although robots have their uses in going places where it is currently impossible to send humans, human spaceflight has many advantages, such as the ability to explore on a hunch and the ability to conduct in-flight repairs. There is also the inherent desire to travel to new places and literally "go where no man has gone before."

As the rover descended to the surface of Mars last night, Caltech President Jean-Lou Chameau was doing something that no other university president gets to do: He was in mission control, his heart racing.  “It was the most exciting event of my entire life,” Chameau said in an interview Monday. “It's hard to describe the experience, the pressure that exists in that room. It was emotional, and it was draining. I can tell you that my colleagues at other universities should be envious.”  JPL, which runs the Curiosity mission, is a division of Caltech, and a number of the scientists and engineers on the Curiosity team are Caltech professors.

It's just under three hours until the Mars rover Curiosity touches down on Mars, and things outside mission control at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Cañada-Flintridge are picking up. Scientists are milling about nervously, the fate of the vehicle now out of their control, and hundreds of journalists await word on the success or failure of the mission. The hip-hop star Will.i.am is standing with shuttle astronaut Leland Melvin in front of a rover model, listening attentively to a JPL scientist describe the mission in detail.